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CRIME: 



ITS 



NATURE, CAUSES, TREATMENT, 
AND PREVENTION. 



BY 



SANEORD M. GREEN, 

LATE JUDGE OF THE SUPREME AND CIRCUIT COURTS OF MICHIGAN; 
AUTHOR OF "GREEN'S PRACTICE," ETC , ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1889. 



i 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 

SANFORD M. GREEN, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




PREFATORY. 



The leading ideas expressed in the following pages, in regard 
to the nature and appropriate treatment of crime, were enunciated 
by the writer more than forty years ago in giving instructions to 
juries in the trial of criminal cases, and in the sentencing of 
persons convicted of crime, and have been publicly expressed by 
me hundreds of times in the presence of thousands of people 
during the long period of my service as a judge, without eliciting, 
so far as I have ever heard, any serious dissent or adverse criticism. 
Jurors were advised that their duties required no violation of the 
golden rule ; that the prisoner was alleged to be morally diseased, 
and that they were summoned as a council of physicians to diag- 
nose his case, and determine whether or not he was really diseased 
as supposed ; and that if such was proven to be his condition, the 
proper treatment ought to be administered for his cure and the 
protection of the community upon the same principle in all re- 
spects as in the case of an insane person. Juries were further in- 
structed that if in fact the prisoner was found to be thus diseased, 
it was most merciful as well as just to the prisoner himself that 
they should so declare by their verdict, in order that he should 
receive the treatment his condition required ; and that though it 
were better that ninety and nine guilty persons should escape than 
that one innocent person should suffer, yet it were still better that 
no guilty person should be allowed to escape the just consequences 
of his evil conduct. 

Deeply impressed with the truth of these propositions, I had 
for several years contemplated preparing an essay for the purpose 
of illustrating and enforcing them, when I should be able to find 
the necessary time and opportunity to do so. While engaged in 
the attempt to prepare such an essay, the idea of a more compre- 
hensive work on the subject of crime occurred to me, and the 

i* 5 



6 PREFATORY. 

following treatise on the nature, causes, treatment, and prevention 
of crime has been the result. It was commenced without any 
definite idea of its publication. I was then seventy-eight, and 
might not be able to complete it. But favorable conditions have 
enabled me to present it to the public. It was, as I believed, the 
last work I should attempt to write, and as it progressed I became 
intensely interested in the subjects treated of, and inspired with 
the hope that it might be of some value in aiding to solve some 
of the great social problems that are now agitating the civilized 
world. 

The treatment and cure of those moral diseases from which all 
sin and crime proceed are subjects of more interest and impor- 
tance to mankind than all others. Sin may never be entirely elimi- 
nated from this world, but I believe that, by means which have been 
proven to be practicable, it may be reduced to a small fraction of 
its present magnitude ; and if this book shall be a means of con- 
tributing in some small degree to that end, I shall be more than 
satisfied with the result of my labor. 

Some apparent anachronisms will be found in references made 
to recent or transpiring events. These are explained by the fact 
that the preparation of the work has extended over some four 
years, and the events thus referred to were recent or passing at 
the time of the allusions made to them. 

I avail myself of this occasion to express my most sincere 
thanks to those friends who have aided me in this work by candid 
criticisms and suggestions, and by assisting me in my researches 
after historical and scientific facts. 

The Author. 

Bay City, October, 1889. 



CONTENTS, 



ARTICLE I. 

OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

CHAPTER I. page 

Nature of Crime 9 



ARTICLE II* 

CAUSES OF CRIME. 

CHAPTER I. 
Introduction 23 

CHAPTER II. 
Heredity as a Cause of Crime , 24 

CHAPTER III. 
Accidental Prenatal Influences 33 

CHAPTER IV. 
Intemperance as a Cause of Crime 36 

CHAPTER V. 
Ignorance a Cause of Crime 68 

CHAPTER VI. 
Idleness as a Cause of Crime 75 

CHAPTER VII. 
Avarice, Cupidity, and Personal Ambition as Causes of Crime ..... 76 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. page 

The Conflict between Capital and Labor as a Cause of Crime 97 

CHAPTER IX. 
Other Causes of Crime 141 



ARTICLE III. 

TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

CHAPTER I. 
Treatment of Crime prior to the Present Century 148 

CHAPTER II. 

Treatment of Crime and Condition of Prisons at the Present Time ... 167 

CHAPTER III. 

Of the Principles which should govern all Action relative to Crime . . 182 

CHAPTER IV. 

Of some of the Evils of our Present System of Punishment for Crime . 197 

CHAPTER V. 
Of the Proper Treatment and Discipline of Persons Convicted of Crime . 218 



ARTICLE IV. 

PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

CHAPTER I. 
Education as a Means of preventing Crime 257 

CHAPTER II. 
The Prevention of Intemperance - 290 

CHAPTER III. 

How shall the Interests of Capital and Labor be harmonized and the 

Conflict between them prevented ? 301 

CHAPTER IV. 
Conclusion 338 



A TREATISE 

ON THE 

Nature, Causes, Treatment, and Prevention 



OF 



CRIME 



ARTICLE I. 

OP THE NATURE OP CRIME. 

" This grim topic still claims precedence over all others, whether personal 
or general. It is at once the most catholic and the most individual of human 
attributes. ,It confronts us alike in crowded cities and on lonely prairies, in 
peaceful villages and on stormy oceans ; and when we seek the privacy of our 
chamber it passes with us across the threshold. Its beginning was in the 
earliest dawn of history, and he were a bold optimist who should foretell the 
day of its departure. It was a mystery at the first, and, after so many thousand 
years of experience and analysis, we still ask ourselves what it is, and why? 
It is the darkest and the hardiest growth that has ever sprouted from the human 
heart. All the nostrums of the usual pharmacopoeia have been tried upon it, 
with scarce an abatement of its sinister luxuriance. No other phenomenon is 
so bewildering in its manifestations. Civilizations have been based upon it, 
and it has destroyed civilizations. We call it the child of ignorance, but 
many of the most highly trained and gifted minds have been steeped in this 
sable vat of crime. . . . Paganism suckled it, but Christianity has slain for it 
the fatted calf." — Julian Hawthorne, "Address on Crime before the Na- 
tional Conference of Charities and Correction," at Washington, 1885. 



CHAPTER I. 

NATURE OF CRIME. 



Crime is said to consist of those wrongs which the gov- 
ernment notices as injurious to the public, and punishes in 
what is called a criminal proceeding in its own name. A 

9 



I0 OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

crime or misdemeanor has also been defined to be, " An act 
committed or omitted in violation of a public law forbidding 
or commanding it." In considering the nature of crime, we 
shall not be limited to what the laws treat as such, but shall 
include as within the meaning of that term all wrongs com- 
mitted against persons and property, public health, justice, 
decency, and morality, whether forbidden by a public law 
or not. In the course of our discussion of the nature and 
causes of crime, we think it will appear manifest that some 
great wrongs are tolerated and upheld by the laws of States 
and nations, while many smaller ones are made punishable 
as public offences. The main reason why governments do 
not treat all great wrongs as criminal, and subject the 
offenders to punishment, is the difficulty of defining them 
in such, a way as to distinguish them from those acts which 
may be beneficial or injurious, according to surrounding 
circumstances, and their ultimate results. Such are those 
wrongs which constantly occur in trade and commerce and 
business transactions, in which the strong take advantage 
of the weak and the shrewd of the simple and credulous, 
and by which the former wrests from the latter the proceeds 
of his honest industry and labor, giving no adequate return 
therefor, the law in many cases applying the rule of caveat 
emptor \ and affording no redress, even by a civil suit for 
damages. 

Under our institutions of republican government, all are 
theoretically equal, and possess an inalienable right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; and it is the duty of 
the whole collectively, as represented by the government, to 
protect every individual in the enjoyment of this right. In 
the political compact constituting the government, which is 
supposed to be based upon the consent of the governed, the 
common right and common interest of all to be secure in 
their persons and property is fully recognized, and it is the 
principal object of civil government to guard and protect 



NATURE OF CRIME. H 

this right. It is for this purpose that laws are enacted for- 
bidding those acts which are subversive of these recognized 
rights, or which endanger the welfare of the community, 
and provide redress according to the nature of the wrong 
committed. If such wrong is of a private nature, affecting 
the rights of an individual or individuals only, it may, in 
general, be redressed by a civil action in favor of the party 
wronged ; but if it be one affecting the public in general and 
tending to disturb the peace and good order of society, it 
is denominated a crime or misdemeanor, and is redressed by 
means of a prosecution in the name and behalf of the people 
of the State. 

We can best comprehend the nature of crime by contrast- 
ing its consequences with those of well-doing. Being a wrong 
done to the injury of others, its fruits are evil, resulting in 
pain and suffering; whereas the fruits of well-doing are 
good, tending to promote happiness and relieve or prevent 
suffering. Thus crime is evil because it is hurtful, and well- 
doing good because it is beneficial. By contrasting these 
results we arrive at a knowledge of what is good and what 
is evil, and this knowledge can be gained in no other way. 
If, therefore, there ever was a time in the history of our race 
when man knew not evil, it is certain that he did not know 
good. The author of the book of Genesis illustrates this 
great truth in his account of Adam and Eve in the garden 
of Eden. The tree which was planted in the midst of the 
garden, and the fruit of which they were forbidden to par- 
take, was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and by 
partaking of that fruit they are assumed to have become as 
gods, knowing good and evil. 

So if " the fruit of that forbidden tree brought death into 
the world and all our woe," as the poet assumes, it also 
brought a knowledge of all the good that man can ever 
know. This law of contrast, or comparison, runs through 
all the daily experiences of our lives. By lawless violence 



j 2 OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

and disorder in the community we learn the value of peace 
and security ; by sickness, the value of health ; by hunger, 
the enjoyment of food ; by weariness, of rest ; by poverty 
and destitution, the value of a competence; by darkness, 
that of light ; by ugliness, the charm of beauty. And so 
of every conceivable thing that can subserve the good of 
man and promote his enjoyment, — he can only appreciate 
it as good by comparing it with that which is evil. It is 
by this law that intellect itself has its development. Herbert 
Spencer, Bain, and other eminent writers on biology and 
physiology, who have analyzed the modes of intellect and 
the conditions of its development, have shown that all in- 
tellectual processes, from the highest and most complex to 
the most elementary and simple, consist in apprehending 
resemblances and differences. To assimilate and dissimilate, 
to integrate and disintegrate, is its fundamental process, 
which is exemplified in all its operations. 

The serpent, which is represented as tempting the woman 
to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, was to the He- 
brews the emblem of wisdom. It was a brazen serpent that 
Moses lifted up in the wilderness for the healing of those 
who had been bitten by the flying reptiles that afflicted 
them. The disciples of Jesus were admonished to be wise 
as serpents and harmless as doves. The wisdom attributed 
to the serpent was therefore something to be desired, and 
was a necessary qualification for the successful preaching of 
the gospel of righteousness. If, then, good could only be 
known by a knowledge of evil, are we to conclude that evil 
should be accounted as good ? or shall we then do evil that 
good may come? The voice of wisdom answers, Nay. 
The tree is known by its fruit; a good tree cannot bring 
forth evil fruit, neither do men gather grapes from thorns 
or figs of thistles. It is said that " In this world offences 
must needs come ; but woe unto him by whom the offence 
cometh." We know by our daily experiences and observa- 



NATURE OF CRIME. 



13 



tion that good and evil are opposites in their nature and 
effects. Whatever incidental good may, in some way not 
foreseen or designed, grow out of the commission of a 
wrong, the character of the act remains the same. It is 
still a wrong, and the perpetrator is equally guilty, even if 
good should result from it. An act proceeding from pure 
motives, and which is beneficial in its results to individuals 
or the public in general, we denominate good, and an act < 
proceeding from an evil purpose, and injurious to individuals 
or the public, we denominate an evil or criminal act, and all 
enlightened peoples recognize these opposite qualities as 
characterizing human actions and conduct. 

In order to fully comprehend the nature and effects of 
crime, it is necessary that we consider the duty of all to 
each and each to all. The obligation of the government to 
protect every citizen in the enjoyment of his recognized 
rights, whatever his character or condition may be, arises 
from the very nature of organized society, and presupposes 
the power as existing in the body politic to adopt all such 
measures as are requisite for the attainment of this object. 
This obligation and duty on the part of the aggregated 
body of the citizens of a State implies a correlative duty on 
the part of each of its members not only to refrain from 
all acts which tend to interfere with or obstruct it in the 
performance of its duties, but to aid the whole body in the 
attainment of its objects. Upon the faithful and intelligent 
performance of those reciprocal obligations and duties de- 
pends the happiness and prosperity of the people of a 
State. 

In our complex state of society a condition of indepen- 
dence is impossible, and no individual can, if he would, escape 
the duties which he owes to it with impunity ; nor can there 
be any adequate motive for his desiring to do so if it were 
possible. Without the active support of the citizens of a 
republic the government cannot perform its appropriate 



14 



OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 



functions. Those who are elected or appointed to make or 
administer the laws must perform the duties assigned them, 
or the constitution of government must cease to exist. The 
duty of every one not only to contribute his fair proportion 
of the expenses of administering the government, if he has 
property upon which it can be apportioned or assessed, but, 
if he have no property to be assessed, and be capable of 
doing so, to labor for his own support, is fully recognized 
as the just equivalent of the protection which the govern- 
ment is intended to afford to the person and property of 
each individual, — a protection, the right to which, as we 
have above indicated, cannot be alienated or forfeited, even 
by the commission of crime however flagrant. 

The mutual relations of all to each and each to all establish 
a common interest and tend to inspire a feeling of common 
brotherhood among men. No public wrong can be committed 
without an injury to every member of the community, and 
no wrong can be done to one without an injury to all. 

As society progresses in knowledge, science, and useful 
arts and inventions, it becomes more and more complex, 
and new wants and new sources of enjoyment are developed, 
and each individual becomes more and more dependent upon 
others for essential requisites of his support and comfort. 
When the primitive man clothed himself with fig-leaves, or 
the skins of wild beasts, and fed upon the spontaneous 
productions of the earth, his condition was that of compara- 
tive independence during the period of his manhood and 
strength; yet in his infancy and childhood he was as de- 
pendent for the preservation of his life and the supply of 
his physical needs as the infant of the present period. But 
the arts and inventions, and improved social conditions of 
an advanced civilization, and the multiplication of the race, 
have destroyed the independence which the savage man 
possessed and bound the interests of all together in one 
common weal, and thus made each dependent upon all and 



NATURE OF CRIME. 



15 



all upon each, while they have increased the means of hap- 
piness according to the ratio of such advancement. Thus 
there exists both a necessity and a motive for recognizing 
the common brotherhood of the social body. In our habits 
and modes of thought none are independent. A man may 
be, and certainly ought to be, honest in the expression of 
his convictions of truth and right, but how far his opinions 
have been the result of independent ratiocination, or how 
they may have been formed or influenced by the thoughts 
and opinions of others, none can determine. He is indebted 
to the intellectual and moral culture of the ages for all the 
intellectual and moral power he possesses above those of 
the savage or primitive man. Knowledge and wisdom are 
of slow growth, and their development in man has occupied 
all the vast period of time since man's advent upon the 
earth ; and yet his greatest wisdom and highest degree of 
knowledge only serves to reveal to him the fact that he is 
still groping in darkness and ignorance. When, therefore, 
we speak of independence of thought and opinion, we clearly 
can do so only in a very limited and qualified sense. An 
original thought, says Emerson, is the rarest thing in the 
f world. In supplying our physical wants and necessities we 
find ourselves absolutely dependent upon others. Not one 
of all the vast multitude of civilized men can furnish him- 
self with the food he consumes, or a single article of the 
clothing he wears, or the house he dwells in, without the 
aid of others ; and when we consider what a multitude of 
people have contributed their labor and skill in the produc- 
tion of every garment we wear, the number appears amazing. 
From the acquisition of the land, its clearing and cultivation, 
the sowing of the seed, and the care of the plants that yield 
the fibre, or food, for the fleecy tribes that furnish the raw 
material ; the preparation of the material and the manufacture 
of it into cloth, including the invention, manufacture, and 
operation of the machinery by which it is manufactured ; 



X 6 OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

the preparation of the cloth for its destined uses ; its sale, 
transportation, and distribution to the points where it is 
needed; the cutting, fitting, and making up into the gar- 
ments with which we are clothed, the number of those who 
have thus labored for our benefit appears almost beyond our 
power to compute. Each one of this immense number has 
done a part, however small ; but it required them all to ac- 
complish the completed work. We thus see and ought to 
be profoundly impressed with the truth of the proposition, 
that it is the interest as well as the duty of each to seek his 
own happiness in promoting the welfare of all. In a com- 
munity where all should act intelligently for the accomplish- 
ment of this purpose, the highest attainable degree of human 
happiness would be reached. The person, property, and in- 
dividual rights would be held sacred, and would be safe, and 
none would be permitted to suffer where suffering could be 
averted. As, however, we do not expect to find absolute 
perfection in any individual, neither do we expect to see a 
perfect nation or community of people. Individuals and 
communities will always be subject to defects and imperfec- 
tions, and the effort to overcome the evils men see in them- 
selves, or the body politic of which they are a part, will ever 
be, to those who make it, an inspiring source of gratification. 
As humanity ascends from one moral elevation to another, 
the view broadens, and while the lower conditions from 
which man has arisen are more clearly seen, a view is gained 
of more elevated positions still to be attained, and the mo- 
tive for higher effort is seen in the " coming events" which 
" cast their shadows before." 

In all ages of the world, since the dawn of civilization, 
there has existed in the minds of the wisest and best an 
ideal of a social state wherein righteousness, peace, har- 
mony, and good-will should prevail, and an abiding faith 
that such a state would eventually be realized by mankind. 
The " Republic" of Plato, the " Cyropaedia" of Xenophon, 



NATURE OF CRIME. 



17 



the " Republic" of Cicero in imitation of that of Plato, 
Dante's " De Monarchia," Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," 
Bacon's " New Atlantis," the " Argenis" of Barclay, Saint- 
Pierre's " Arcadia," and the schemes of Fourier, Proudhon, 
Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, Ruskin, and others, represent 
the ideas of their several authors and promoters in regard 
to a social state or condition which would be promotive of 
the highest degree of human happiness. The early Chris- 
tians believed that a great change was soon to take place 
over the whole earth, and that in the new state about to be 
inaugurated righteousness and peace should everywhere 
prevail, and universal love and good-will should fill all 
hearts and govern all actions. This was to be the millen- 
nial state, and there are many who still look forward with 
faith and hope that such a condition will some time be real- 
ized upon the earth. While the Utopias, Arcadias, and 
ideal commonwealths of former ages appear extravagant 
and absurd in many of their characteristics, some of them 
contain suggestions of needed reforms which have been 
practically adopted in later times for the amelioration and 
improvement of the condition of men. 

When we come face to face with society as it now is, and 
consider the vast amount of ignorance, folly, and iniquity 
everywhere manifest, even among those who are deemed 
the most enlightened, it is apparent that we may not hope 
for an immediate realization of that exalted condition which 
we believe the race is capable of reaching. But when we 
also contemplate the progress it has made within the his- 
toric period, from a condition of savage and barbaric bru- 
tality to civilization and enlightenment, as exhibited in the 
character of the English, French, German, and American 
peoples, and especially since the beginning of the present 
century, we are justified in predicting a continuance of pro- 
gression until our highest ideal shall be realized. As the 
means of knowledge have increased, man's progress has 
b 2* 



!g OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

been accelerated in a constantly increasing ratio ; and al- 
though his practical standard of morals has not kept pace 
with his progress in science and arts, discoveries and inven- 
tions, and needs to be greatly elevated, yet, taking the world 
at large, it was perhaps never so high as now, and should 
and must continue to rise as intelligence is increased. 

Man's physical needs were the first to be felt and provided 
for, and the effort to provide for these developed his intel- 
lectual faculties. When these became sufficiently unfolded 
he began to acquire ideas of moral obligation and duty, 
and to advance from the sensual and purely selfish plane of 
animal life towards that condition which constitutes the 
ideal of a perfect social state. 

The experiences of one condition of the race have pre- 
pared it for a higher one. The light and knowledge of one 
age could not be comprehended by a preceding age, and 
wherever a people have advanced so far as to be capable of 
receiving more knowledge of truth, a teacher has never 
failed to appear to dispense it to the world. Confucius, 
Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, and Jesus were far in advance of 
the ages in which they lived, and the great principles of 
right and justice which they taught were received by a 
few only, and were but imperfectly understood by those 
who became their disciples. Their light shone upon dark- 
ness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Although 
the light was perfect, the perception of it in the minds of 
men has been so feeble, or distorted, that it has led them 
into the greatest errors, superstitions, and perversions of 
the truth. The Prophet of Nazareth taught that men should 
love not only their friends, but their enemies also, and seek 
to do good to them ; that each should do to others as he 
would that others should do to him ; that wars should cease, 
and that peace and good-will should prevail upon the earth. 
A religion professedly based upon the teachings of Jesus 
has for centuries been the prevailing religion in the most 



NATURE OF CRIME. 



19 



powerful and enlightened nations of the world. But of all 
the sects and denominations which have assumed the name 
of Christianity, and each one claiming to have the true 
light, which one has ever understood the teachings of the 
Master ? Instead of organizing churches upon the principle 
that love is the fulfilling of the law, and the qualification 
for membership a pure and holy life devoted to the welfare 
of all, — a principle so in accord with human reason and 
experience that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not 
err therein, — creeds, dogmas, and articles of faith the most 
abhorrent to human reason and repulsive to every kindly 
impulse of the heart of man have been adopted, taught, 
and their acceptance insisted upon as the only means of 
escape from the vengeful anger of an offended Deity and of 
salvation from endless woe. To one who looks at the his- 
tory of Christendom from the stand-point of a moral phi- 
losopher and historian merely, it scarcely seems wonderful 
that for more than a decade of centuries, under ecclesiastical 
rule, — when to reason was a crime worthy of death, and 
hundreds of thousands were put to death with excruciating 
tortures for the supposed glory of God, as heretics, be- 
cause'they had outgrown the ignorance, bigotry, and super- 
stitions of their age, and become wiser than their generation, 
— a pall of thick moral and intellectual darkness covered 
the earth during that long and terrible period justly denomi- 
nated " the dark ages." But the light continued to shine 
and the minds of men have gradually been opened to re- 
ceive it, so that during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies, and more especially during the last half-century, 
thought has asserted its supremacy and exulted in a free- 
dom never accorded to it before, and the progress of the 
race in material wealth and comfort as well as intellectual 
and moral improvement has been unprecedented. 

Thus we see that ignorance has been the mother of crime, 
and that crime has perpetuated and rendered the moral 



20 



OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 



darkness and depravity more dense and horrible. It matters 
not that men were burned at the stake, or crucified, or other- 
wise slain as heretics or non-conformists, because of their 
opinions in matters of religious belief, under the authority 
or protection of the power constituting the goverment, or 
according to the forms of law, nor how sincere were the 
convictions of those who perpetrated or sanctioned the deeds 
of blood, that the God they professed to worship required 
such sacrifice of human life, their acts stand out in all their 
hideous and ghastly deformity as crimes against humanity/ 
It is the nature and necessary effect of crime to obstruct 
and oppose progress in knowledge and virtue ; and hence, 
by contrasting his present state or any former condition 
with that ideal state in which peace, order, and universal 
love shall prevail, and to which we believe man will eventu- 
ally attain, see that the only practical means of his advance- 
ment must be to overcome evil with good. Had that vast 
number of men who suffered martyrdom because of their 
indomitable integrity and courage been allowed the exercise 
of freedom in the expression of their thoughts, and to con- 
tinue their example before the world, we cannot doubt but 
what it would have been centuries in advance of its present 
state in intelligence, morals, religion, and everything that 
tends to promote human welfare. " Who can pretend," says 
Darwin, " to say why the Spanish nation, so dominant at 
one time, has been distanced in the race ? The awakening 
of the nations of Europe from the dark ages is a still more 
perplexing problem. At this early period, as Mr. Galton 
has remarked, almost all the men of gentle nature, those 
given to meditation or culture of the mind, had no refuge 
except in the bosom of the church, which demanded celibacy, 
and this could hardly fail to have a deteriorating influence 
upon each successive generation. During this same period 
the Holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the finest 
and boldest men in order to burn and imprison them. In 



NATURE OF CRIME. 21 

Spain alone some of the best men — those who doubted and 
questioned (and without doubt and questioning there can be 
no progress) — were eliminated during three centuries at the 
rate of a thousand a year." 

The way of progression is to oppose and endeavor to 
eradicate all wrong, oppression, injustice, and crime, wher- 
ever or in whatever form it may exist. When we come to 
consider the causes of crime which constitute the root of 
all these evils, it will be apparent that strong convictions 
and clear perceptions of right and justice, with courage, 
energy, charity, and patience, and that enthusiasm which is 
[" inspired by the consciousness of being engaged in a great 
and good work, will all be demanded as qualifications for 
effective service. There are evil habits and customs so 
deeply embedded in the constitution of society as it now 
exists, and which have been cherished for ages, to be cor- 
rected and removed, and great wrongs to be exposed and 
righted, against the assumed rights and interests of great 
masses of our people who will wish to be let alone, that the 
philanthropist or reformer who undertakes to go to the bot- 
tom of things and set them right may expect to encounter 
most strenuous resistance and rancorous and determined 
opposition. 

Crime works injury to the perpetrator. When it affects / 
others in their persons, property, or social rights, its ten- 
dency is to excite indignation and induce retaliation. It 
not infrequently sets in operation a train of events resulting 
in the greatest calamities. A great wrong done, or believed 
to have been done, not infrequently awakens a feeling of 
vindictiveness in the minds of masses of people, who, moved 
by a common impulse, become a maddened, lawless mob, 
who with reckless violence cause the destruction of lives 
and property and inspire universal terror throughout a 
municipality. A murder or other atrocious crime, com- 
mitted or attempted, often inspires a multitude of men, who 



22 OF THE NATURE OF CRIME. 

have never before been thought capable of committing crime 
or thought themselves to be so, with the determination to 
murder the supposed perpetrator, and vengeance is thus 
often blindly executed upon an innocent victim, who is 
given no opportunity to make his innocence appear. 

We most firmly believe also that no man ever did, or can, 
derive any substantial benefit from the commission of wrong, 
whether done consciously or otherwise, and we sincerely 
believe that whoever commits a wrong to the injury of 
another will in his own person suffer for the wrong he has 
committed, and that no atonement will or can be made for 
it by another. If his conscience is so clouded that he does 
not at the time realize the moral guiltiness of his acts, we 
believe that the time will come when his moral conscious- 
ness will be awakened, and that he will then suffer the just 
penalty of his evil doing. And moreover, to our apprehen- 
sion, this immutable law which declares that " though hand 
join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished," and that 
" the soul that sinneth it shall die," is not only according to 
perfect justice, but according to the highest and most per- 
fect mercy and most supreme wisdom. These consequences 
of our actions are, to each individual, the discipline he 
needs, and which is indispensable in order to bring him into 
harmony with the laws of the universe, without which he 
cannot know happiness. A life of evil-doing is one of moral 
death. It may afford gratification to the sensual appetites 
and passions which man possesses in common with the 
brutes that are without moral sense ; but when we consider 
that it is through man's moral consciousness that he is 
capable of rising from a low to a higher plane of existence, 
and that his happiness is increased in proportion to his 
moral elevation, and his knowledge of good as contrasted 
with evil, we perceive the supreme wisdom and mercy of 
the law by which just moral retribution is made a certain 
consequence of wrong or disregard of moral obligation. 



ARTICLE II. 

CAUSES OP CRIME. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 



In the preceding article we have briefly considered the 
nature of crime with reference to its consequences to so- 
ciety and to its members individually, and the basis of man's 
individual obligation and duty in his relations to others 
in a social or civilized state. We have also adverted to 
the grounds upon which we may predicate the hope 
of his continued progression towards that ideal state which 
constitutes our conception of the highest and most per- 
fect condition to which man is capable of attaining, and 
we have seen that in order to form a rational idea of his 
capacity for advancement, we must look back through the 
entire period of his history, and observe the progress he 
has made during the centuries through which we can trace 
his existence upon the earth. In this progress we have 
found the prophecy of that exalted state which seers and 
sages have predicted for the human race, and upon it we 
feel assured we may rest our faith in the ultimate emancipa- 
tion of humanity from the thraldom of sin. We are now 
to treat of the causes which produce crime, and to consider 
the sources, so far as we are able to trace them, of the 
wrong and injustice, the tyranny, oppression, and cruelty 
men practise towards their fellow-men, and from which 
proceed most of the suffering which exists in the world. 

In our endeavor to discover the causes of crime we shall 

23 



24 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



not undertake to solve the mystery of life, nor to search 
out the primal cause of sin. If an all-wise and all-powerful 
Creator permitted evil to enter into the constitution of man, 
and still permits it to exist in his nature and yield its fruit- 
age of misery, our reason can guide us to no other conclu- 
sion than that infinite wisdom and goodness could devise 
no other means of securing for man that elevation in the 
scale of being to which he is destined. Or, if we assume 
that nature without a supreme guiding intelligence (as the 
materialists believe) has developed man from the elements 
of the material universe by infinite processes of evolution, 
we may conclude that she has done the best she could in 
making man what he has been, and what he is, but the 
origin of evil on this theory is none the less a mystery. 

We are now mainly interested in inquiring into the nature 
and causes of crime, with reference to its prevention and 
treatment, and for this purpose we can only consider those 
proximate and secondary causes to which we can trace the 
commission of criminal actions ; for until we shall have ar- 
rived at a true conception of the nature, and searched out 
the causes, of crime, we shall not understand what is neces- 
sary to its prevention or cure. 



CHAPTER II. 

HEREDITY AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 

In our researches after the causes of crime, the first, if 
not one of the principal, that attracts our attention is hered- 
ity ; or the bodily, mental, and moral characteristics which 
proceed from ancestral antecedents, and which are planted 
as germs in the system of the child by his progenitors as a 
part of his nature, to grow with his growth and strengthen 



HEREDITY AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 2 $ 

with his strength, unless overcome or counteracted by some 
, more potent influence. An able writer and thinker has de- 
fined heredity as a law of biology, by which organisms tend 
to repeat themselves in their descendants. Every animal 
inherits the characteristics of the species to which it be- 
longs ; and mental heredity is just as much a fact of science 
as physical heredity. Animals inherit the physical as well 
as the psychological characteristics of the genus, species, 
and variety to which they belong. 

Even atavism, resembling somewhat alternate generation 
in the lower forms, seems to show the tenacity with which 
heredity preserves and transmits what has been acquired, 
even when it has been repressed for generations. 

Men and nations are generally subject to the law of he- 
redity. An individual exhibits the traits of his race, his 
people, and his family. A State exhibits its national charac- 
ter. Historians have not failed to notice the essential iden- 
tity of the character of a nation through all periods of its 
history. Ribot says that " In the absence of scientific re- 
searches, historians have long been accustomed to express 
decided judgments upon the national character, and the im- 
possibility of altering it. Thus the French of the nineteenth 
century are in fact the Gauls described by Caesar. In the 
commentaries by Strabo, and in Diodorous Siculus, we find all 
the essential traits of our national character : love of arms, 
taste for anything that glitters, extreme levity of mind, in- 
curable vanity, address, great readiness of speech, and dis- 
position to be carried away by phrases. There are in Caesar 
some observations which might have been written yesterday. 
" The Gauls," says he, " have a love of revolution ; they 
allow themselves to be led by false reports into acts they 
afterwards regret and into decisions on the most important 
events ; they are depressed by reverses ; they are as ready 
to go to war without a cause as they are weak and powerless 
in the hour of defeat." 

B 3 



2 6 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

History also shows that the other nations and peoples of 
the earth have perpetuated their peculiar characteristics, 
most of them, however, in a modified form, owing to the 
admixture of the blood of different nationalities, and other 
causes. Thus heredity is seen to be a law of conservation. 
Changes in environment, climate, soil, food, etc., produce 
changes, however slight, in the organism. Offspring cannot 
be wholly like both parents. The law by which paternal 
and maternal characteristics are transmitted necessitates 
variations from both the father and mother. Variations 
occur which, because we cannot discover their antecedents, 
are called spontaneous. These variations indicate the ne- 
cessity of heredity to preserve and perpetuate beneficial 
changes, and to promote that progress which heredity would 
otherwise seem to render impossible. The newer modifica- 
tions must necessarily be fluctuating until they become fully 
correlated with the reproductive system, and can only ac- 
quire stability and take their place as conservative inheri- 
tances, when sustained from without as well as from within. 
The same writer above referred to justly remarks, that " The 
knowledge now possessed in regard to the laws of heredity, 
were it diffused, would probably contribute something to 
prevent the transmission of physical, mental, and moral de- 
formities and weaknesses ; but deep-rooted prejudices, time- 
honored customs, and hoary superstitions are obstacles to 
the practical application as well as the diffusion of this 
knowledge, not to be overcome easily, nor in a short time." 
But whatever obstacles may exist to retard the diffusion 
and appreciation of a knowledge of the laws of heredity, it 
is a subject of so great importance to the welfare of human- 
ity, and so essential to human progress, that they cannot be 
overlooked, nor their investigation omitted. The prejudices, 
customs, and superstitions which have always stood opposed 
to the investigation of new truths in science, ethics, or phi- 
losophy, which are not in accord with preconceived opinions, 



HEREDITY AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



27 



are constantly being overcome or modified by deeper thought 
and the force of reason ; and in this age of general freedom 
of opinion and speech they constitute no ground for dis- 
couragement to those who seek after knowledge for the 
purpose of applying it to the use and benefit of their fellow- 
men. The characteristics which distinguish nations, and 
which are called national characteristics, are formed by, and 
represent, the general character of the individuals consti- 
tuting the nationality, and their perpetuation by the law of 
heredity indicates that by the same law individual and family 
traits of character are transmitted by parents to their de- 
scendants ; and while each individual inherits the general 
character of his race or people, he also inherits, in a more 
marked degree, the physical and mental constitution of his 
parents or other ancestors." Mr. Ribot has shown that the 
sensorial qualities of touch, of sight, of hearing, smell and 
taste, as well as the faculties of memory, imagination, and 
intellect, are transmissible by heredity. 

In treating of heredity as among the causes of crime, it 
will be sufficient for our purpose to consider the forms of 
transmission of those sentiments, appetites, and passions 
which tend to the commission of crime, either directly or 
indirectly. Ribot remarks that " the passion known as dip- 
somania, or alcoholism, is so frequently transmitted that all 
are agreed in considering its heredity as a rule. Not, how- 
ever, that the passion for drink is always transmitted in that 
identical form, for it often degenerates into mania, idiocy, 
and hallucination. Conversely, insanity in parents may 
become alcoholism in the descendants. This continual 
metamorphosis shows how near passion comes to insanity, 
how closely the successive generations are connected, and, 
consequently, what a weight of responsibility rests on each 
individual." 

Gall speaks of a Russian family in which the father and 
grandfather had died prematurely, the victims of this taste 



2 8 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

for strong drink. The grandson at the age of five mani- 
fested the same liking in the highest degree. In our own 
times Magnus Huss and Dr. Morel have collected many 
facts bearing on the heredity of alcoholism, a few instances 
only of which need to be cited. 

A man belonging to the educated class, and charged with 
important functions, succeeded for a long time in concealing 
his alcoholic hajpits from the eyes of the public ; his family 
being the only sufferers from it. He had five children, only 
one of whom lived to maturity. Instincts of cruelty were 
manifested in this child, and from an early age its sole de- 
light was to torture animals in every conceivable way. He 
was sent to school, but could not learn. At the age of 
nineteen he had to be sent to an asylum for the insane. 

Charles X , son of an eccentric and intemperate 

father, manifested instincts of great cruelty from infancy. 
He was sent at an early age to various schools, but was 
expelled from all. Being forced to enlist in the army, he 
sold his uniform for drink, and only escaped a sentence of 
death on the testimony of physicians, who declared he was 
the victim of an irresistible appetite. 

A man of an excellent family of laboring people was 
early addicted to drink, and died of chronic alcoholism, 
leaving seven children. The first two of these died at an 
early* age of convulsions. The third became insane at 
twenty-two, and died an idiot. The fourth, after various 
attempts at suicide, fell into the lowest grade of idiocy. The 
fifth, of passionate and misanthropic temper, broke off all 
relations with his family. His sister suffered from various 
disorders which chiefly took the form of hysteria, with in- 
termittent attacks of insanity. The seventh, a very intelli- 
gent workman, but of morose temperament, freely gives 
expression to the gloomiest foreboding as to his intellectual 
future. 

Dr. Morel gives the history of another family, in which 



HEREDITY AS A CAUSE OF CRIME, 



2 9 



the great-grandfather was a drunkard and died from the 
effects of intoxication, and the grandfather, subject to the 
same passion, died a maniac. He had a son far more sober 
than himself, but subject to hypochondria and homicidal 
tendencies, and the son of the latter was a stupid idiot. 
Here we see in the first generation alcoholic excess ; in 
the second, hereditary dipsomania ; in the third, hypochon- 
dria; in the fourth, idiocy and probable extinction of the 
race. 

Ribot states the sad case of a lady of regular life and 
economical habits, who was subject to fits of uncontrollable 
dipsomania. Loathing her state, she called herself a misera- 
ble drunkard, and mixed the most disgusting substances 
with her wine, but all in vain ; the passion was stronger 
than her will. Quite recently, says Ribot, Dr. Morel had 
again an opportunity of proving the hereditary effects of 
alcoholism in the children of the commune. He inquired 
into the mental state of one hundred and fifty children, 
ranging from ten to seventeen years of age, most of whom 
had been taken with arms in their hands behind the barri- 
cades. " This examination," he says, " has confirmed me in 
my previous convictions as to the baneful effects produced 
by alcohol, not only in the individuals who use this detesta- 
ble drink to excess, but also in their descendants. On their 
depraved physiognomy is impressed the threefold stamp of 
physical, intellectual, and moral degeneracy." 

Other propensities which, in their origin at least, are 
purely physical, — as gluttony, and even cannibalism, — as 
attested by Gall, Lordat, and Prosper Lucas, are transmissi- 
ble to descendants. When we consider the more complex 
passions of avarice, theft, and murder, we find them also 
subject to the law of heredity. " The passion for play," 
says Ribot, " often attains such a pitch of madness as to be 
a form of insanity, and, like it, transmissible," and he cites 
from " Da Gama Machado" the case of a lady of large 

3* 



3 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

fortune who had a passion for gambling and spent whole 
nights at play, and who died young, of pulmonary disease. 
Her eldest son, who was very like his mother, had the same 
passion for play. He too, like his mother, died of consump- 
tion, and at about the same age. His daughter, who re- 
sembled him, inherited the same taste, and also died young. 
Avarice produces similar consequences. " In several in- 
stances," says Dr. Maudsley, in his " Physiology and Pathology 
of the Mind," " in which the father has toiled upward from 
poverty to vast wealth, with the aim and hope of founding a 
family, I have witnessed the results in a physical and mental 
degeneracy, which has sometimes gone as far as the extinc- 
tion of the family in the third or fourth generation. When 
the evil is not so extreme as madness or ruinous vice, the 
savor of a mother's influence having been present, it may 
still be manifest in an instinctive cunning and duplicity, and 
an extreme selfishness of nature, — a nature not having the 
capacity of a true moral perception or altruistic feeling." 
This distinguished author expresses the opinion that the 
extreme passion for getting rich, absorbing the whole ener- 
gies of a life, predisposes to mental degeneration in the off- 
spring, either to moral defect, or to intellectual or moral 
deficiency, or to outbreaks of positive insanity under the 
conditions of life. Ribot remarks that " the heredity of the 
tendency to thieving is so generally admitted that it would 
be superfluous to bring together facts which abound in every 
record of judicial proceedings." As an instance, the gene- 
alogy of the Christian family from Dr. Despine's " Psycho- 
logic Naturelle," is given as follows : " Jean Christian, the 
common ancestor, had three sons, — Pierre, Thomas, and Jean 
Baptiste. I. Pierre had a son, Jean FranQois, who was con- 
demned for life to hard labor for robbery and murder. ^2. 
Thomas had two sons, Francois, condemned to hard labor 
for murder, and Martin, condemned to death for murder. 
Martin's son died in Cayenne, whither he had been trans- 



HEREDITY AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



31 



ported for robbery. 3. Jean Baptiste had a son, Jean Fran- 
cis, whose wife was Marie Taure (belonging to a family of 
incendiaries). This Jean Francois had seven children: (1) 
Jean Frangois, found guilty of several robberies, died in 
prison ; (2) Benoit fell off a roof which he had scaled and 

was killed ; (3) X , nicknamed ' Clain,' found guilty of 

several robberies, died at the age of twenty-five ; (4) Marie 
Reine, died in prison, whither she had been sent for theft ; 
(5) Marie Rose, same deed, same fate; (6) Victor, in jail 
for theft ; (7) Victorine, married one Lamaire ; their son 
was condemned to death for murder and robbery.'* Many 
other facts of a like kind are related in this work, and which 
show a tendency in such families to unite, thus conferring 
hereditary transmission. Conflicting heredities may exist 
in families, as in the case referred to by Gall, where the one 
from the mother was good, the one from the father was bad, 
and where three out of the five children were condemned to 
severe and degrading penalties for thieving, and the other 
two possessed the good qualities of the mother and lived 
correct lives. 

Kleptomania, which is defined to be " a supposed species 
of moral insanity, exhibiting itself in an irresistible desire to 
pilfer," is an infirmity with which our merchants and trades- 
men generally are acquainted ; and that it is subject to the 
laws of heredity there can be no more doubt than in the 
case of dipsomania. It may be, and probably in many cases 
is, the inheritance of avarice in one or both of the parents, 
and females as often as males are the subjects of this insane 
desire. Most unfortunately, too, many of the subjects of 
this mania are persons of education and intelligence, and 
otherwise of good character, and belonging to families of 
influence and respectability in the community. 

What has been said above of the instinct of thieving may 
be applied to that for robbery or murder. Instances of 
hereditary transmission are generally conclusive, and equally 



3 2 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

numerous. We have already seen the heredity of homicide 
added, in a portion of a family, to the heredity of theft. 
Indeed, all great crimes, proceeding as they do from a de- 
praved mind and an obscured moral sense, are more or less 
correlated to each other. The man who, armed with a re- 
volver, breaks and enters a dwelling or shop in the night-time 
with the intent to commit larceny of goods or money, may 
not hesitate to murder any one who would be likely to prevent 
the execution of his purpose ; and several notable cases have 
occurred in this State recently in which members of a family 
have been murdered by persons in pursuit of plunder. 

Mr. Dugdale, in his examinations of prisons in New York, 
traced back the genealogies of five hundred and forty persons 
who had descended in seven generations from a woman who 
is called " Margaret, Mother of Criminals," and one hundred 
and sixty-nine who were related by marriage or cohabitation. 
Of these seven hundred and nine persons, two hundred and 
eighty were adult paupers and one hundred and forty were 
criminals and offenders, guilty of murders, thefts, highway 
robberies, and nearly every kind of offence known in the 
calendar of crime. Mr. Dugdale has estimated the cost of 
supporting this vast family of paupers and criminals at one 
million three hundred and eight thousand dollars, without 
reckoning the cash paid for whiskey, or the entailment of 
these evils upon posterity, or the incurable diseases, idiocy 
and insanity, growing out of their debaucheries, and reach- 
ing further than we can calculate. Commenting upon the 
operations of the law of heredity, Papillon says, " The evo- 
lutions of these hereditary maladies are exceedingly interest- 
ing and dramatic. Planted in the children's systems as 
germs, or as mere predispositions, they are sometimes de- 
stroyed beyond a possibility of returning by a multitude of 
favorable conditions and precautions. In other instances 
they begin at once their fatal work of destruction. Or, 
again, they may be hidden for years, reappearing at length, 



ACCIDENTAL PRENATAL INFLUENCES. ^ 

remorseless and terrible, under the influence of sundry ex- 
citing causes. Thus age, sex, temperament, practices, hy- 
giene, surrounding conditions act a part in the development 
of hereditary morbid activities." 



CHAPTER III. 

ACCIDENTAL PRENATAL INFLUENCES. 

Aside from these fixed habits and characteristics of the 
ancestors which are surely transmitted by heredity to de- 
scendants, there are often more transient causes which make 
an indelible impression upon the physical and mental con- 
stitutions of the child. The physical and mental conditions 
of the parents at the time of conception as surely affect the 
progeny for good or ill as the condition and character of 
the soil in which the seed is sown affect the plant which it 
causes to germinate. In the appendix to Combe, on the 
" Constitution of Man," a case is recited from the Phreno- 
logical Journal of intelligent parents who, on the evening 
of cohabitation, attended a social party, drank toddy, and 
danced and sang together during the evening until both 
became intoxicated, and when heated with the dance, and 
their nervous systems inflamed by the toddy, they left the 
cottage, and after the lapse of an hour they were found 
together in a state of insensibility, and the result of this 
interview was the birth of a low-grade idiot. Thousands 
of blighted lives may be traced to similar causes. Out of 
twenty-five epileptics, Voison found twelve to have had 
parents drunk on their honeymoon. This principle of 
transmission was understood by the people of ancient 
Carthage, who had a law forbidding the use of all bever- 
ages, except water, on the day of marital cohabitation. 



34 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



Plutarch, in his work on morals, says, " The advice I am 
now about to give is indeed no other than what has been 
given by those who have undertaken this argument before 
me. You will ask me what is that ? Tis this, that no man 
keep company with his wife, for issue sake, but when he is 
sober, or not having before drunk any wine, or at least, not 
to such a quantity as to distemper him, for they usually 
prove wine-bibbers, and drunkards, where parents beget 
them when they are drunk ; whereupon Diogenes said to a 
stripling, somewhat crack-brained and half-witted, ' Surely, 
young man, thy father begot thee when he was drunk.' " 
Other prenatal causes influence or determine the character 
of the offspring. The environments of the mother, and her 
physical and mental condition during pregnancy, impress 
themselves upon the germ of manhood or womanhood in 
its embryonic or fcetal state. If the child is not wanted, 
and especially if, as occurs with fearful frequency among 
educated and fashionable married women (a fact which 
many of our experienced medical practitioners can attest), 
the mother persistently seeks its destruction, but the uncon- 
scious object of the parent's hate fights its way through to 
birth and recognized existence, the character of the man or 
woman coming into life under such adverse circumstances, 
unwelcome and unloved, cannot be expected to escape the 
baleful effects of the parent's malice. 

Mr. Combe, in the appendix to the " Constitution of Man," 
relates the case of a shoemaker, who called and showed him 
his son, aged eighteen, who was in a state of idiocy. The 
father stated that the mother was sound in mind, as were 
also his three other children, and that the only account he 
could ever give of the condition of this son was, that while 
he was keeping a public house, and some months before the 
birth of this boy, an idiot had come around with a brewer's 
drayman, and helped him lift the casks off the cart ; that 
that idiot made a strong impression on his wife, that she 



ACCIDENTAL PRENATAL INFLUENCES. 35 

complained that she could not get his impression removed 
from her mind, and that she kept out of the way when he 
came to the house afterwards ; that his son was weak in 
body from his birth, and silly in mind, and had the slouched 
and slovenly appearance of the idiot. Several cases are 
cited from the Phrenological Journal illustrative of the doc- 
trine, that the faculties which predominate in power and 
activity in the parents when the organic existence of the 
child commences determine its future mental disposition, — 
a doctrine certainly of very great importance. It was re- 
marked by the celebrated Esquirol that the children whose 
existence dated from the first French revolution turned out 
to be weak, nervous, irritable in mind, extremely susceptible 
of impressions, and liable to be thrown by the least extraor- 
dinary excitement into absolute insanity. Sometimes, too, 
family calamities produce serious effects upon the offspring. 
A very intelligent and reputable mother, during pregnancy, 
received information that the crew of the ship on board of 
which was her son had mutinied ; that when the ship arrived 
in the West Indies, some of the mutineers, and also her son, 
had been put in irons, and that they were all to be sent home 
for trial. This intelligence acted so strongly upon her that 
she suffered a temporary alienation of judgment, and though 
the report turned out to be erroneous, this did not avert the 
consequences of the agitated state of the mother's feelings 
upon the daughter she afterwards gave birth to. When the 
daughter became a woman she was, and continued to be, a 
being of impulse, incapable of reflection, and in other re- 
spects greatly inferior to her sisters. 

We could cite a number of well-authenticated cases which 
have come under our own observation, to show that circum- 
stances strongly affecting the mother's feelings during preg- 
nancy act upon, and frequently determine, the mental and 
physical constitution of the child. One is that of a young 
man of pleasing address, affectionate and obliging in dis- 



36 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



position, who was sent to the reform school for theft at an 
early age. Shortly after he was discharged he repeated the 
offence, and finally committed a burglary, for which he was 
sentenced to the State House of Correction and Reformatory 
for a term of years. Before he was sentenced for the last 
offence, the mother, who was a very honest and respectable 
woman, and the mother of several other children of irre- 
proachable moral character, related to us the following 
facts : Her husband was addicted to habits of intemperance, 
and though he was a good mechanic and earned large 
wages, he often spent so much for liquor as to leave the 
family in need, and during her pregnancy, and before the 
birth of this son, in order to supply her own pressing wants 
and those of her children, she several times took money 
clandestinely from her husband's pockets ; and although in 
her own judgment she thought she was justified in doing 
so, yet she was greatly troubled in her conscience and felt 
that she was guilty of stealing, and it was to this condition 
of her feelings that she attributed the unfortunate propensity 
of her son, for whom she entertained the strongest affection. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 

That the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors is an 
evil of immense and incalculable magnitude at the present 
\ day there are very few who will deny ; nor will it be ques- 
tioned by any who have had any participation in criminal 
proceedings, that it is one of the most fruitful sources of 
crime. It was said by a leading abolitionist a few years 
ago, that the institution of human slavery, as it then existed 
in some of our sister States, was " the sum of all villanies." 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



37 



That institution, by means not then appearing probable, and 
perhaps entirely unthought of by any, has been abolished, 
and six millions of human beings, who were then regarded 
as mere chattels in the hands of their owners, have been 
made free American citizens, with all the rights and privi- 
leges, as such, which their former owners possess. In view 
of the enormous amount of poverty, crime, and consequent 
suffering growing out of the manufacture, sale, and intem- 
perate use of intoxicating liquors, may it not with equal 
truth be said that they now constitute the most villanous 
system that the worst enemy of man could devise for the 
degradation and ruin of the human race ? 

It may be said that the evil arises from the consumption, 
and not from the manufacture and sale of intoxicants, and 
that if people did not use them there would of course be no 
manufacture of or traffic in them. But this does not lessen 
or at all mitigate the evil ; nor is the manufacturer or dealer 
exempt from responsibility for the consequences of their use. 
By furnishing the means through which the end is accom- 
plished, and foreseeing the inevitable consequences to the 
consumer and those who are affected by his acts resulting 
from such use, do they not make themselves accessories 
before the fact to the crime which he commits under their 
influence ? If it be true — as physicians and physiologists 
of the highest authority, who have had the best means of 
observation, and have made the effects of alcohol upon the 
human system a subject of special study and investigation, 
declare — that its use as a beverage is not only injurious to-jr- 
the physical health of the body, but disastrous to the moral 
and intellectual faculties of those who use it, and that even 
as a medicine it is doubtful whether it is in any case bene- 
ficial, it may well be asked whether the manufacturer and 
the seller are not equally responsible with the man who 
commits a wrong in consequence of its use. The fact that 
alcohol, whether in the form of beer, wine, or spirits, has no 

4 



3 g CAUSES OF CRIME. 

food value whatever has long been established by the most 
careful scientific tests. Every kind of substance employed 
by man as food, says Dr. Henry Monroe, consists of sugar, 
starch, oil, and glutinous matter, mingled together in various 
proportions. These are designed for the support of the 
animal frame. That alcohol contains none of these sub- 
stances the most recent and carefully-conducted experiments 
of English, French, German, and American chemists and 
physiologists clearly attest. In answer to a memorial 
presented by the National Temperance Society to the Inter- 
national Medical Congress which convened at Philadelphia 
in 1886, and was composed of delegates from Europe and 
America, the section of that body on medicine returned the 
following : 

1. " Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food value by 
any of the usual methods of chemical analysis or physio- 
logical investigation. 

2. " Its use as a medicine is chiefly that of a cardiac stim- 
ulant, and often admits of substitution. 

3. " As a medicine it is not well fitted for self-prescrip- 
tion by the laity, and the medical profession is not account- 
able for such administration or the enormous evils arising 
therefrom. 

4. " The purity of alcoholic liquors is, in general, not as 
well assured as that of articles used for medicine should be. 
The various mixtures, when used as medicines, should have 
a definite and known composition, and should not be inter- 
changed promiscuously." 

Contrary to the commonly accepted opinion of the igno- 
rant, alcohol is not a producer of heat. Dr. Hunt says that 
" The usual test for a force-producing food, and that to 
which other foods of that class respond, is the production 
of heat in the combination of oxygen therewith. This heat 
means vital force. Experiments have been conducted 
through long periods, and with the greatest care, and no 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 39 

one has been able to discover that alcohol has ever under- 
gone combustion, like food substances, and so given heat to 
the body. On the contrary, it is now well known and ad- 
mitted by the medical profession, that alcohol reduces the 
temperature of the body instead of increasing it. This had 
become well known to Arctic voyagers before physiologists 
had demonstrated the fact by experiment." 

Dr. Edward Smith says that " In the northern regions it 
was proved that the entire exclusion of spirits was necessary 
in order to retain heat under these unfavorable conditions." 
It is safe to assume, in the light of what science has un- 
folded, and what it has failed to unfold upon the application 
of the most careful analysis and experiment, that alcohol is 
not in any sense an originator of vital force when taken into 
the human system. On the contrary, "there can be no 
doubt," says Dr. Hunt, " that alcohol does cause defects in 
the processes of elimination which are natural to the healthy 
body, and which in disease are often conservative of health. 
In the pent-in evils which pathology so often shows concur- 
rent in the case of spirit drinkers, in the vascular, fatty, and 
fibroid degenerations which take place, in the accumulation 
of rheumatic and scrofulous tendencies, there is the strongest V 
evidence that alcohol acts as a disturbing element, and is very 
prone to initiate serious disturbances amid the normal con- 
duct, both of organ and function." He also refers to Dick- 
inson's able expose of the effects of alcohol, in which, after 
recounting with accuracy the structural changes which it 
initiates, and the consequent derangement and suspension 
of vital functions which it involves, he aptly terms it the 
" genius of degeneration." 

It is one of the most fundamental and universally recog- 
nized laws of organic life, that all vital phenomena are ac- 
companied by, and dependent on, molecular and atomic 
changes, and whatever retards these retards the phenomena 
of life, and whatever suspends these suspends life. That the 



40 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



use of alcohol tends to these disastrous results, and that its 
use as a beverage can under no ordinary circumstances be 
beneficial or promotive of physical health, are propositions 
so well established upon incontrovertible medical testimony 
that it would be rashness and folly for any one in this age 
of advanced scientific knowledge and discovery to under- 
take to controvert them. 

If, then, alcohol has no value as food, and is positively 
detrimental to physical health when taken into the system, 
and possesses no quality which can render it beneficial, 
these considerations alone, in view of the enormous tax it 
imposes upon the victims of a debasing appetite for intoxi- 
cants, would affix the stamp of crime upon the manufacturer 
and the seller of this " genius of degeneration," with the 
design that it shall be used as a beverage and with full 
knowledge of the evils which will surely follow such use. 
The man who discharges a loaded rifle among a crowd of 
people, though they may be all strangers to him, and he 
have no malice against any one in particular, and does not 
intend to destroy the life of any particular individual, is 
justly held guilty of murder if he thus inflict a mortal 
wound upon any ; and is it not fully as certain that the 
manufacture and sale of alcohol to be used as a beverage 
will cause crime and premature death as that death would 
ensue from the discharge of a loaded gun among a crowd 
of people ? 

The cost to the consumer of the liquors manufactured in 
this country, as well as of those which are imported and 
used as a beverage by our people, cannot be accurately 
ascertained, but from the records of the Internal Revenue 
Department and records of the commerce and navigation 
of the country the quantity of spirits and beer upon which 
a government tax is collected is accurately known. From 
those records Dr. Wm. Hargreaves has compiled statements 
which may be taken as reliable, and from which the cost to 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 4 j 

consumers is computed. These show that the nation's 
drink bill in 1883 was $944,629,581, and that from 1880 
to 1883, inclusive, it amounted to the enormous sum of 
$3,354,224,000, with a steady increase from year to year, as 
shown in the following tables : 

Year. Dozens of bottles. Gallons. Estimated cost. 

1880 427,005 462,564,447 #733,816,495 

l88l 487,815 498,038,084 800,112,580 

1882 608,080 578,346,335 875,665,344 

1883 890,591 610,195,505 944,629,581 

The quantity and cost of liquors above given are based 
upon the supposition that such liquors are sold to the con- 
sumers as when taken from the bonded warehouses, except 
a deduction of twenty per cent, of alcohol by rectifiers and 
wholesale or retail dealers, and that no other reductions and 
no adulterations are made; and also upon the supposition 
that there are no illicit manufactories of liquors. But it is a 
well-established fact that vast quantities of liquor have been 
annually sold upon which no tax was . paid. By the Inter- 
national Revenue Report of 1 881, it appears that in the five 
years from 18^7 to 1 881, inclusive, there were 4769 illicit 
distilleries seized by the government, and that 8615 persons 
were arrested for operating them. It also appears that in 
making these seizures and arrests, twenty-eight officers and 
employes of the government were killed and sixty-four 
wounded. In the year 1882, 509 stills were seized and 147 1 
persons arrested for operating them ; and four officers and 
other men killed in that year, in their endeavor to suppress 
illicit distilling. The product of these illicit stills, amount- 
ing to a very large sum, must be added to the cost of liquors 
on which the taxes were paid in order to form a true estimate 
of the entire expense to the consumer of the liquors used. 

It is hardly possible for persons generally to comprehend 
the value of a million dollars. How, then, can we compre- 
hend the value of the vast sum of three thousand three hun- 

4* 



42 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

dred and fifty-four millions and upward ($3,354,224,000) X 
which has been expended for drink by the people of this 
country in four years, from 1 880 to 1883, much less the 
$21,286,525,458 expended for the same purpose in eighty- 
four years, from 1800 to 1883 inclusive? Probably the best 
conception we can form of it is by comparing it with the 
values of other products of human labor and enterprise. 
During the eighty-four years specified, as shown from offi- 
cial sources, the value of our entire imports was $18,205,- 
704,517, and that of our entire exports was $16,322,147,652. 
Dr. Hargreaves, in his supplement to " Our Wasted Re- 
sources," by the same author, after giving tabulated state- 
ments to which he refers, makes the following comparisons 
and statements : 

" During the first quarter of this century there was spent 
for intoxicating drinks nearly $2,000,000,000 ($1,948, 205 ,487), 
or $195,000,000 more than the value of all imports, including 
coin and bullion, and $858,000,000 more than the value of 
the merchandise, coin, and bullion exported ; and during the 
next fifteen years, from 1825 to 1840, the value of the im- 
ports was over $1,547,000,000, and $375,000,000 more than 
the cost of liquors ($1,172,609,790), and liquors cost $62,- 
000,000 more than the value of all the domestic exports. 

" During the next ten years over $ 1 , 1 30,000,000 were spent 
for liquors, which was $30,000,000 more than the value of 
all imports, and $34,000,000 more than the value of all 
exports. From 1850 to 1859 there were spent for liquors 
$2,275,000,000, or $135,000,000 more than the value of all 
domestic exports. During the ten years from 1870 to 1879 
the nation's drink bill was $6,717,000,000, or $1,497,000,000 
more than all the domestic exports. During eighty years 
our nation's drink bills were nearly $18,000,000,000, which 
was $2,485,000,000 more than all our domestic exports. And 
during the present century (eighty-four years) we have spent 
for liquors $21,286,000,000, or $3,081,000,000 more than all 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



43 



foreign imports, and $4,964,000,000 more than all domestic 
exports. By the tenth Census Report (1880) the assessed 
value of real and personal property was $16,902,993,543, or 
$4,384,000,000, less than the nation's drink bills for the 
century (eighty-four years). Thus more than $21,286,000,- 
000 of the hard-earned wages of our toiling millions, that 
should have been spent by our laboring classes for food and 
clothing for themselves and their families and to promote 
the prosperity of the country and the happiness of our 
people, were expended for strong drinks, from which have 
flowed poverty, misery, crime, disease, and death, and which 
have burdened our industrious and sober citizens with taxes 
which would not have been needed had not these thousands 
of millions been expended for drink. 

"Then, again, by the Census Report (1880) the value of 
farm products sold, consumed, or on hand, was $2,212,540,- 
927, which was $197,000,000 less than the cost of drink for 
the three years, 1880, 1881, and 1882. The value of the 
products of our mechanical and manufacturing industries 
for the same period was $5,369,579,191, which was $198,- 
000,000 less than the nation's drink bill ($5,567,759,276) for 
eight years, from 1875 to 1882 inclusive. Then, again, the 
cost of liquors during the seventy-nine years from 1800 to 
1879, inclusive, was $17,932,301,458, or over $1,000,000,000, 
more than the assessed value of all real estate and personal 
property in 1880 within the United States. Our people, in 
three years, spend for drink more than the value of the 
natural products of all our farms, and in eight years more 
than the value of all our mechanical and manufacturing in- 
dustries ; or in less than eleven years our people spend for 
drink the value of our farms and of all our mechanical and 
manufacturing industries. Then if a fire were to be kindled 
on the 1st of January of every eleventh year, and if during 
the year every article, as fast as produced in our factories 
workshops, etc., and all farm products as fast as they were 



44 



CAUSES. OF CRIME. 



gathered, were thrown into this fire and burned until nothing 
but their ashes remained, this destruction of the products 
of labor and capital would not inflict as much pecuniary in- 
jury to our people and country as is produced every eleven 
years by the sale of intoxicating drinks. If the products 
of our farms, factories, and workshops, of the value of the 
money spent annually for drink, were destroyed by fire and 
flood (in addition to all destroyed by casualties and other 
unavoidable causes), it would be a terrible loss, and a cry 
of woe, sorrow, and horror would be raised all over our 
land and would arouse and excite every feeling heart. Yet 
this destruction would not deprive our working-classes of 
the physical and mental power to supply their loss with 
others. To spend money for intoxicating drinks is not only 
a waste of the money, but the users of the drinks are, while 
under their influence, incapacitated to perform their duties 
in a greater or less degree." 

As said already, the assessed value of real estate and 
personal property in 1880 was $16,902,993,543. The true 
value by the Census Report was $43,642,000,000. " During 
the present century, or in eighty-four years (from 1800 to 
1883 inclusive), there were spent for liquors $21,286,525,458, 
which is nearly one-half of the true value of all the property, 
real and personal, that has been accumulated since the land- 
ing of the Pilgrim Fathers from the ' Mayflower' on Ply- 
mouth Rock and the first settlers at Jamestown. It may be 
safely asserted that if the true cost of liquors could be ascer- 
tained, more money has been spent for alcoholic poisons and 
their indirect cost since the Declaration of Independence 
than would buy to-day all our farms, factories, and work- 
shops, and their machinery and other contents ; all our 
railroads and their equipments ; all our houses, furniture, 
clothing, and other articles of value in the United States, 
with the breweries and distilleries, liquor shops and liquors 
thrown into the bargain." 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 45 

"The permanent investments in the 87,891 miles of rail- 
road in operation, and owned by the 1482 railway companies 
in the United States in 1880, was $5,182,445,807. The 
drink bill of the nation for ten years (1870 to 1879) was 
$6,617,502,405, which was $1,436,000,000 more than the 
permanent investments of all the railroads in the United 
States in 1880. Indeed, our nation's drink bill for the last 
seven years was only $6,000,000 less than the investment in 
railroads. Thus in seven years our people spend for drink 
nearly as much money as is now invested in the 87,891 
miles of railroads operated in the United States in 1880." 

" Then, again, the average annual cost of liquors for the 
three years from 1880 to 1882, inclusive, was $803,000,000; 
the average cost of liquors for each man, woman, and child 
was $16, and for each family $80.75. 

"There were in 1880, 8,955,812 dwellings, of which 
163,522 were taxed retail liquor places, and 11,610 taxed 
retail malt-liquor shops, or a total of 175,133 places where 
intoxicating drinks were sold at retail. If the liquor shops 
in 1880 were in one place they would form a city having 
more dwellings than there are in Philadelphia (146,412) and 
Pittsburg (24,080) combined, and as many dwellings remain- 
ing as would make another city as large as Sacramento, 
California, or would make four cities as large as St. Louis, 
Missouri, or two cities larger than New York. Indeed, 
these drink shops would form a city larger than New York, 
Brooklyn, Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse, with 1307 
dwellings to spare. To arrange them side by side, allowing 
each a frontage of thirty-four feet, they would form a street, 
with drinking shops on each side 497 miles long, or nearly 
the distance from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, 
Ohio ; in other words, if placed side by side, they would ex- 
tend on each side of the railroad track from Philadelphia 
nearly to Cleveland." 

Every one who reflects a moment on the subject must be 



4 6 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



convinced that no people, however favored, can continue to 
prosper who waste so large a proportion of the value of 
labor for drink. Money panics, hard times, and stagnation 
of business must inevitably follow such extravagance and 
waste, and people who violate every law of political economy 
must sooner or later become ruined and bankrupt. 

" Money spent for drink adds nothing to the consumer's 
possessions, — nothing that really benefits in the present nor 
in the future, as do food, clothing, furniture, and other 
property. There is not the least doubt, if the money spent 
for intoxicating drinks in this country since the Declaration 
of Independence had been devoted to the purchase of 
necessary and useful articles, the real and personal property 
would be nearly double the present value, our people more 
happy and prosperous, besides being more intelligent, moral, 
and religious, and the sober and industrious classes free from 
taxation now imposed upon them for public charities and 
correction." 

To one who has never given special attention to an in- 
vestigation of the subject these figures and statements appear 
startling and almost incredible, but unfortunately their truth- 
fulness is too well established by irrefragable evidence to 
admit of any doubt as to their substantial correctness. 

Dr. Hargreaves estimates the loss of labor of persons 
engaged in the liquor trades, and loss by drinking, as follows : 
Loss of time and industry of 586,472 persons engaged in 
making and selling liquors, $293,236,000 ; loss of time and 
industry of 700,000 drunkards, $175,000,000; loss of time 
and industry of 2,138,391 male tipplers, $222,392,664; ag- 
gregate loss of time and industry, $690,628,664. He further 
remarks that " Closer investigation would doubtless show 
that this large aggregate is far below the true loss. Fifty 
years ago a committee of the English Parliament found, 
after close investigation, that one-sixth of the wealth-produ- 
cing power of England was lost annually by drinking." The 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OE CRIME. 47 

loss by the destruction of grain in the breweries and distil- 
leries, in 1882, was 66,660,792 bushels, which at fifty cents a 
bushel would be $33,330,396. This grain would make about 
fifteen four-pound loaves of bread per bushel, and a grand 
total of 990,000,000 four-pound loaves, or more than ninety- 
nine and one-half loaves for each family in the United States 
in 1880. This calculation does not include the destruction 
of grain, etc., used in the production of imported liquors, 
nor that used in the manufacture of domestic liquors that 
are not reported to the revenue officers, nor the 30,000,000 
gallons of wine as reported in the Agricultural Report of 
1880. 

The loss by sickness, etc., by the use of alcoholic drinks, 
amounts to many millions of dollars annually. Dr. Har- 
greaves says, " There is ample evidence that alcoholic drinks 
produce sickness, and in proportion to the quantity of liquors 
consumed is the sickness and death-rate of a people. It has, 
by careful investigation, been estimated that from one-third 
to one-half of the sickness of civilized nations rs directly or 
indirectly the result of the use of alcoholic beverages. Dr. 
B. W. Richardson, President of the Health Section of the 
Social Science Congress, Brighton, England, October, 1875, 
stated that the duration of life in England was diminished 
to the extent of one-third by the sale of intoxicating drinks. " 
Allowing one case of sickness in three hundred and fifty of 
the population of the United States, according to estimates 
carefully prepared, and it shows the average number simul- 
taneously sick from drink in the United States to be 143,302 
persons. The cost of medical attendance and medicine is 
not less than one dollar a day for each person sick, which, 
added to the loss of time for each working-man at one dollar 
and fifty cents per day, will make an annual loss from sick- 
ness caused by drink of $119,368,576. 

Dr. Hargreaves says, " Drink not only predisposes the 
users to disease, but prevents their cure when taken sick, 



48 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

and hastens death, consequently deprives the State of the 
labor of its citizens, causing sorrow and suffering to the 
victims and their families or friends, and a loss to the whole 
nation." In 1880, as shown by the Census Report, 478,072 
died under five years of age and 278,821 over five years. 
In the absence of the exact number we will say one-third 
of the latter died under twenty-one years, leaving 185,880 
who lived to adult age. Applying Dr. Richardson's propor- 
tion of deaths from alcohol to the deaths in this country, 
then 61,962 deaths in 1880 were directly or indirectly due 
to intoxicating drinks, which fully bears out the estimate 
that "60,000 die annually in the United States by drink." 
More than sixty years ago we read among " short sentences" 
in our school-book this brief epigram, which we have re- 
called to memory a thousand times, that " Intemperance 
destroys more lives than war, pestilence, and famine." Dr. 
Hargreaves estimates the loss to employers by drinking 
employes at $10,000,000 annually, and, including other in- 
direct losses, makes a total sum of $891,213,640 as the in- 
direct annual cost and loss by drink. This sum, added to 
the direct cost of drinks in 1883 ($944,629,581), shows the 
grand total of loss and cost by drink to have been not less 
than $1,835,843,221 in a single year, not including the value 
of the grain destroyed to make the drink. 

The arguments of the brewers and distillers, and those 
who favor the liquor traffic, that they give employment to 
large numbers of persons, is so fully answered by Dr. Har- 
greaves in the essay referred to, by showing that all the 
labor employed and capital invested in the manufacture and 
sale of liquors might be employed in the production of the 
necessaries and comforts which go to support health and 
produce happiness and enlarge the means of enjoyment, 
that we do not deem it necessary to do more than refer the 
reader to this essay for the perfect refutation of such an 
argument. 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



49 



The results, which the most obtuse can see, of devoting 
the immense amount annually lost by liquor drinking to the 
purchase of food, clothing, building of comfortable homes, 
or other permanent improvements, education, etc., contrasted 
with the consequences of using it in the purchase of liquor, 
show how preposterous is the idea of the utility of manu- 
facturing and selling intoxicating liquors to be used as a 
beverage, and the criminality to which the government be- 
comes a party by legalizing and protecting the liquor traffic. 
For the destruction of a single life, when not justifiable or 
excusable, a man may be hung or incarcerated for life ; but 
the destruction of sixty thousand lives every year (or one 
every two minutes) in the United States by strong drink, in 
a population of fifty millions, subjects no one to punishment 
by the State, except the unhappy victims of an insatiable 
appetite and of the cupidity and selfishness of those who 
compass their ruin and that of their families for gain. Does 
not every brewer, distiller, rectifier, and retailer of strong 
drinks well know the direful consequences inevitably result- 
ing from the business in which he is engaged ? Certainly 
to doubt this would be an insult to his understanding. 
What justification, then, can there be for the individual who 
engages in it, knowing that no good but only evil can grow 
out of it ? To say that it is a legal business, sustained and 
protected by the laws of the State, and that the government 
makes itself a party to the iniquity by exacting a portion of 
the profits which is paid into the national, State, and mu- 
nicipal treasuries as an equivalent for legal immunity and 
protection, is only to assert a legal justification which no 
one questions, but does not in any degree affect the great 
moral question of man's right to bring upon his fellow-man 
the misery, degradation, and premature death which are the 
sure results of the use of alcoholic liquors. To answer that 
there is a demand for strong drink, and that, the business of 
supplying it being open to all who pay for the privilege, that 



5o 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



demand will be supplied by others if not by themselves, and 
that therefore they might as' well have the profit of it as 
others, is equally fallacious as an argument to justify the 
traffic. If such an argument were sound, many of the 
crimes which the law punishes as such could be easily justi- 
fied for the same reason. It entirely ignores the obligation 
which rests upon all not to injure any, but to so act as to 
benefit all who are affected by our actions. The recognition 
of this obligation lies at the foundation of all sound ethics 
and of all genuine religion. 

But more deplorable than the loss of the cost to the con- 
sumer, and the physical diseases, poverty, and destitution 
which it brings upon the drinker, is the moral degradation 
and crime which are caused by its use, especially in our 
large cities. 

Chief-Justice Noah Davis, of the New York Supreme 
Court, in a paper carefully prepared and read by him in 
December, 1878, in the parlors of the President of the 
National Temperance Society, before many distinguished 
guests, after remarking that there are other causes of crime, 
such as hate, avarice, jealousy, lust, and revenge, says that 
. "Among all causes of crime, intemperance stands out the 
unapproachable chief." The passions named would proba- 
bly cause more or less crime without the stimulating effect 
of strong drink, but these are intensified by intemperance. 
Intoxicating drinks enable men to commit crime by firing 
the passions and quenching the conscience. " Burke, the 
Irish murderer, whose horrible mode of committing crime 
has taken his own name, in his confession states that only 
once did he feel any restraint of conscience. That was when 
he was about to kill an infant child. The babe looked up 
and smiled in his face ; ' but/ said he, ' I took a large glass 
of brandy, and then I had no remorse.' His case," says 
Judge Davis, " is one of thousands. Many times in my ex- 
perience have young men looked up to me, when asked 






INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



51 



what they had to say why the sentence of the law should 
not be pronounced, and falteringly said, ' I was drunk ; I 
would not and could not have done it had I not been drunk.' " 
In our own experience of over thirty-five years as circuit 
judge, when any response has been made to the question if 
he had anything to say why the sentence of the law should 
not be pronounced against him, the convicted criminal has 
stated that he was intoxicated at the time the crime was 
committed, else he should not have done it ; and in several 
cases of larceny recently tried, the prisoners have testified 
that they were so overcome by the effects of long-continued 
drinking that they were not conscious of having committed 
the crime charged against them. The proofs in all such 
cases, however, satisfied the jury and the court that they 
had a " drunken consciousness," although obscured by in- 
toxication, of the commission of the acts which constituted 
their crimes, and that they required the discipline and re- 
straint which the law imposes for their own good. 

" That habits of intemperance," says Judge Davis, " are 
the chief causes of crime is the testimony of all judges of 
large experience." 

In 1670, Sir Matthew Hale, then Chief-Justice of England, 
and who was the author of a treatise on crimes, said, "The 
places of judicature I have long held in this kingdom have 
given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of 
most of the enormities that have been committed for the 
space of nearly twenty years ; and by due observation I 
have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the 
burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, fornications, 
rapes, and other enormities that have happened in that time 
were divided into five parts, four of them have been the 
issue and product of excessive drinking — of tavern and ale- 
house drinking." The same testimony has been borne by 
judges of the highest and lowest courts exercising criminal 
jurisdiction during the intervening century. In a letter from 



52 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



Lord Chief Baron Kelley to the Archdeacon of Canterbury, 
of recent date, he says, " Two-thirds of the crimes which 
come before the courts of law of this country are occasioned 
by intemperance." Equally explicit is the testimony of 
those whose official duties have brought them in contact 
with convicted criminals. The chaplain of the Preston 
House of Correction said, " Nine-tenths of the English 
crime requiring to be dealt with by law arises from the 
English sin (intemperance), which the law scarcely discour- 
ages." And the late inspector of English prisons says, " I 
am within the truth when I state that in four cases out of 
five, when an offence has been committed, intoxicating drink 
has been one of the causes." A committee of the House 
of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, in 1875, reported 
that " Out of 28,289 commitments to the jails of the Prov- 
inces of Ontario and Quebec during the three previous 
years, 21,236 were committed either for drunkenness or for 
crimes perpetrated under the influence of drink." 

The State Board of Charities in Massachusetts, in their 
report for 1869, said, "The proportion of crime traceable to 
this great vice must be set down, as heretofore, at not less 
than four-fifths," and in 1868 the inspector of State prisons 
gave the same proportion. Dr. Harris, of New York, cor- 
responding secretary of the Prison Association, after an in- 
spection of the prisons of that State, in a paper on " The 
Relations of Drunkenness to Crime," says, " As a physician, 
familiar with the morbid consequences of alcoholic indul- 
gence in thousands of sufferers from it, it was easy for the 
writer to believe that not less than one-half of all crimes and 
pauperism in the State depends upon alcoholic inebriety. 
But after two years of careful inquiry into the condition of 
the criminal population of the State, I find that the conclusion 
is inevitable that, taken in all its relations, alcoholic drinks 
may justly be charged with far more than half the crimes 
that are brought to conviction in the State of New York, 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



53 



and that full eighty-five per cent, of all convicts give evidence 
of having in some larger degree been prepared or enticed to 
do criminal acts because of the physical and distracting 
effects produced upon the human organism by alcohol." 
Dr. Harris also states that of seventeen cases of murder ex- 
amined by him separately, fourteen were instigated by in- 
toxicating drinks. 

The Board of Police Justices of the city of New York, 
whose testimony is especially valuable because of their daily 
observation of crime and criminals, say, in their annual 
report of 1874, " We are fully satisfied that it (intoxication) 
is the one great leading cause which renders the existence 
of our police courts necessary." 

"Three district attorneys of the county of Suffolk, em- 
bracing the city of Boston," says Judge Pittman, " speak to 
us with equal emphasis." The first in order of time, Hon. 
John C. Park, says, " While district attorney I formed the 
opinion (and it is not a mere matter of opinion, but is con- 
firmed by every hour of experience since) that ninety-nine- 
one-hundredths of the crime in the Commonwealth is pro- 
duced by intoxicating liquors." Hon. George P. Sanger 
(ex-Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and United States 
Attorney for the District of Massachusetts), speaking from 
his experience as the prosecuting officer for the same district, 
says, " There are very few cases into which the use of in- 
toxicating liquors does not enter." The last attorney referred 
to, for the same district, J. Wilson May, writes, " According 
to my official observation, drinking in some form is directly 
responsible for about three-fourths of the crime that is 
brought to the cognizance of the country, and indirectly for 
about three-quarters of the other crimes." Dr. Hargreaves, 
in treating of intoxicating drinks as a cause of crime, says, 
" In whatever direction we look, in every State and Territory 
of the United States, and in every portion of the civilized 
world, the terrible results of the use of, and traffic in, alco- 

5* 



54 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



holic drinks have been felt, and to which may be traced 
most of the crime, misery, and disturbance of the public 
peace. This cause, more than all others, fills our jails, poor- 
houses, penitentiaries, and lunatic asylums, and does more 
to frustrate the efforts of Christians and philanthropists than 
all else combined." He refers to a paper written by Mr. 
Fiske, and published in the report of the United States 
Commission of Education for 187 1, in which it is stated 
that "at the Deer Island House of Industry (Boston), of 
3514 committals, 3097, or eighty-eight per cent, were for 
drunkenness ; fifty-four more as idle and disorderly, which 
commonly means under the influence of drink ; seventy-seven 
for assault and battery, which means the same thing ; and 
forty-eight as common night-walkers, every one of whom 
was a common drunkard. We have therefore in this prison 
a full ninety-three per cent, whose confinement is connected 
with the use of drink, and this may be taken as a not ex- 
aggerated sample of many municipal prisons. In the New 
Hampshire State Prison, sixty-five out of ninety-one admit 
themselves to have been intemperate. Reports were asked 
from every State, county, and municipal prison in Connecti- 
cut in the spring of 187 1, in reference to the statistics of 
drinking habits among the inmates, and it was found that 
more than ninety per cent, had been in the habit of drinking 
by their own admission." " The Warden of the Rhode 
Island State prison, and county jailer, estimated ninety per 
cent, of the residents of his cells as drinkers. More than 
three-fourths of the inmates of prisons attribute their fall to 
the use of intoxicating drinks. Of thirty-nine cases of 
murder, and one hundred and twenty-one cases of assault 
to murder, in the city of Philadelphia, in 1868, in almost 
every case the murderer was intoxicated when the deed was 
committed." 

In 1867 there was paid for liquor licenses in Pennsylvania 
the sum of $320,015, and during the same year that State 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



55 



paid for criminal and pauper expenses, caused directly by 
liquor drinking, $2,259,910, or an average of five dollars 
and eighty cents for each voter w ithin her borders. In the 
same year Philadelphia paupers and criminals cost $1,500,000, 
or eleven dollars for each voter. The report of the Board 
of State Charities of Pennsylvania, m 1 87 1 , on page 89 says, 
" The most prolific source of disease, poverty, and crime, 
observing men will acknowledge, is intemperance." Refer- 
ring to the moneys received for licenses, the board asks, 
" Should these wages of iniquity be put into the treasury ?" 
and says, " They are the price of blood, and in their aggre- 
gate would be inadequate to buy fields enough to bury the 
multitude who are the victims of the dreadful traffic for 
whose profits they sell the people's sanction." 

Numerous other facts, derived from authentic sources, 
are given by Dr. Hargreaves, all tending to establish the 
conclusion that from four-fifths -to nine-tenths of all the 
crimes committed in the United States and other civilized 
nations are the result, either directly or indirectly, of the 
use of intoxicating liquors, and that probably an equal pro- 
portion of the pauperism proceeds from the same cause. 
Our own observation, during an experience of more than 
half a century as a practising lawyer, a prosecuting attorney, 
and a circuit judge, leads us to the conclusion that this esti- 
mate is not exaggerated, and that fully nine-tenths of the 
crime committed in this State is caused, directly or indirectly, 
by the use of intoxicating liquors. As Judge Davis says, 
" The line of witnesses might stretch out to the crack of 
doom. The case would only be a little stronger. It is 
established beyond argument, by official statistics, by the 
experience of courts, and by the observation of enlightened 
philanthropists, that the prevalence of intemperance in 
every country is the standard by which its crimes may be 
measured." 

The charge against the liquor traffic and its use is, that 



56 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



it does no good, but evil only, and that continually. The 
specifications under this charge, and which are claimed to 
have been proven beyond question or controversy, are the 
following : 

i. That it occasions a waste and loss in the United States 
alone of over $1,800,000,000 annually. 

2. That it works the destruction of the home. 

3. That it is the parent of pauperism, with all its attend- 
ant suffering. 

4. That it injures the public health, vitiates human stock, 
and destroys sixty thousand lives annually. 

5. That it is the chief cause of crime. 

6. That it is the universal ally of evil, the universal an- 
tagonist of good. What Charles Dickens said of the wine- 
shops of France may be said with equal truth of the liquor- 
saloons of this country : " The wine-shops are the colleges 
and chapels of the poor in France. History, morals, politics, 
jurisprudence, and literature in iniquitous forms are all 
taught in these colleges and chapels, where professors of 
evil continually deliver those lessons, and where hymns are 
sung nightly to the demon of demoralization. In these 
haunts of the poor, theft is taught as the morality of prop- 
erty, falsehood as speech, and assassination as the justice of 
the people. The wine-shops breed, in a physical atmos- 
phere of malaria and a moral pestilence of envy and ven- 
geance, the men of crime and revolution." 

In our drinking-saloons burglaries, thefts, robberies, 
and other crimes are planned ; to them the fruits of crime 
are brought; and there the perpetrators find a friendly 
welcome and protection after the commission of their 
crimes. 

That strong drink acts as a poison when taken into the 
human system, and is capable of producing death, is a fact 
established beyond controversy by scientific observation. 
Dr. Hargreaves, in "Alcohol and Science," says, "The dis- 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



57 



eases produced by intoxicating drinks are legion. Thou- 
sands, aye, tens of thousands, die annually whose deaths 
are ascribed to diseases that would not seriously have 
affected them, or proved fatal, if alcohol had not laid the 
foundation of the disease by lowering the tone of the 
system, undermining the vital forces and the conservative 
energies of the system." Dr. Hargreaves and other eminent 
physicians, who had the opportunity to examine the stomach, 
liver, kidneys, and other organs of drinkers of wine, beer, 
and distilled liquors, give illustrations showing the frightful 
effects which they produce upon these organs. They show 
us the condition of the human stomach in a healthy state ; 
the condition of that organ produced by moderate drinking, 
with the beautiful net-work of blood-vessels, which was in- 
visible in the healthy stomach, dilated and distended with 
blood; the condition of that of the confirmed drunkard, 
with the blood-vessels of the inner coat so fully gorged as 
to render the most minute branches visible to the eye, like 
the rum-blossoms on the drunkard's face, thickening and 
softening the mucous coat, and often resulting in ulceration. 
Other illustrations show the ulcerated condition of the 
drunkard's stomach after a long debauch, and also where 
delirium tremens, resulting in death, has intervened, and the 
cancerous condition of the same organ. Other illustrations 
are given showing the disastrous effects of alcoholic drinks 
upon the liver and kidneys, and it is our firm conviction 
that if our liquor laws were so amended as to require every 
retail dealer in strong drinks to have an enlarged copy of 
these illustrations hung up by the side of his license certifi- 
cate, in a conspicuous place in his saloon or bar-room, and 
he were required in every case, before selling or giving a 
drink to a customer, to direct his attention to them, the 
effect would not fail to be salutary, though it might tend to 
reduce the profits of his business. 

Paralysis, paraplegia, insanity, epilepsy, disease of the 



58 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



heart, and other nervous diseases are shown to be the 
natural effects of alcohol. 

Dr. Hargreaves says that, " if only a small portion of the 
truth respecting alcohol as a predisposing and exciting cause 
of disease were known, our people would be dismayed ; but 
as it is, hundreds are daily dying by it, and no cry is raised, 
no horror expressed." 

Mr. Richmond says that "the grog-shop is not known 
among savages, and is not tolerated among Mahomedans or 
any of the half-civilized nations of the earth. It is only 
under the banner of the cross, where modern Christian en- 
lightenment has shed its benign rays over the country, that 
such institutions can flourish." 

Under this head of " Intemperance as a Cause of Crime" 
may properly be included the use of some other poisonous 
drugs that are used habitually by millions of people, both 
in enlightened, civilized, semi-civilized, and barbarous na- 
tions. Of these, that which is the most extensively used is 
tobacco. 

The Bureau of Statistics, Department of Agriculture, 
through Mr. J. D. Dodge, statistician, furnishes an estimate 
of the area, product, and value of the tobacco crops in the 
United States and Territories from 1868 to 1883, inclusive, 
embracing a period of sixteen years. From the statements 
so furnished it appears that during that period the product 
amounted to 7,359,703,213 pounds, or an average of about 
460,000,000 pounds a year, and that the average quantity 
of land annually used in producing this crop was over 
650,000 acres, or over one thousand square miles. The 
average value to the producer of the annual yield, estimated 
at ten cents per pound, was $46,000,000, and the total value 
to the producer for the sixteen years embraced in the esti- 
mate was over $735,000,000. 

After being manufactured into chewing and smoking 
tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, and snuff, its cost to the con- 






INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME, 



59 



sumer has probably been not less than an average of one 
dollar per pound. According to this estimate the whole 
cost to the consumer of tobacco during the above-named 
period of sixteen years, was $7,359,703,213, or nearly $46,- 
000,000 annually. 

To the direct and immediate cost of the drug must be 
added the expenses and losses of time from diseases origi- 
nating in its use, and other incidental losses resulting from 
the same cause. We have no statistics from which any 
estimate of these expenses and losses can be made. Com- 
mon observation, and the testimony of many eminent 
physicians who have given attention to this subject, offer 
abundant evidence that the total amount must have been 
several millions of dollars annually. The entire cost of 
tobacco in this country, to the consumer and those directly 
and indirectly affected by its production, manufacture, and 
consumption, has been estimated at the enormous sum of 
#600,000,000 annually, and from the best consideration we 
have been able to give of the evidence upon this subject, 
we are not prepared to say that this estimate is too large. 
This would make the entire cost of tobacco to the nation 
during the above-named period of sixteen years, $9,600,000,- 
000, a sum so enormous that the mind shrinks from any 
effort to realize it. 

But if we assume that all the loss and injury resulting 
from the use of this drug, excepting the direct cost to the 
consumer, is in some way compensated for by its use, yet 
the estimates made from reliable statistics above referred to 
show the actual cost to the consumer during that period to 
have been over $7,350,000,000. This sum distributed 
equally among five millions of worthy wage-workers, would 
furnish to each of them a home and surroundings of the 
value of $1470, or ten millions with each a cottage and 
grounds worth $735. In the hands of the government, 
this sum would fortify our sea-coasts and frontiers and 



6o CAUSES OF CRIME. 

create the strongest navy in the world for national defence 
and protection. Such an amount drawn at once from the 
resources of the most powerful nation would render it 
bankrupt and helpless. Add to this the expenses of the 
nation's liquor bill, estimated at over $900,000,000 for the 
year 1883, and the amount of benefit it would be capable 
of conferring upon our people, if judiciously applied, would 
be incalculable. It should not be forgotten, in this connec- 
tion, that the production, sale, and use of intoxicating 
liquors and tobacco are among the means by which the 
rich are made richer and the poor are made poorer. 

Scientific analysis of the properties of tobacco fails to 
show that it has any available food quality. Its value, if 
any, must therefore consist in its physiological effects. 
Analysis shows that the active principle of this drug is a 
substance called nicotine. 

Vauquelin, in his analysis, gives the following ingredients 
in tobacco : the acrid, the volatile principle, nicotine, acetic 
acid, a soluble red matter, supermulate of lime, chlorophyl, 
nitrate of potash and chloride of potassium, sal-ammo- 
niac, and water. The strongest tobacco contains from six 
to seven per cent, of nicotine, " which," says " Appleton's 
Cyclopaedia," "possesses an exceedingly acrid, burning 
taste, even when largely diluted. Its vapor is exceedingly 
powerful and irritant to the nostrils, that arising from a 
single drop being sufficient to render the whole atmosphere 
of a room insupportable. It is one of the most virulent 
poisons known, a drop of the concentrated solution being 
sufficient to kill a dog, and its vapor destroying birds." Dr. 
Hobart A. Hare, of the University of Pennsylvania, says, 
" Recently, M. Le Bon announces, after long research, that 
he has obtained from tobacco-smoke a notable quantity of 
prussic acid ; a new alkaloid of very agreeable odor, but as 
poisonous as nicotine, the fiftieth of a drop being sufficient 
to produce paralysis and death. Whatever value may be 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 6 t 

found in the ingredients of tobacco as a therapeutic agent, 
when applied under the direction of learned and skilful 
doctors of medicine, can afford no ground for concluding 
that its common use, either in chewing, smoking, or snuff- 
ing, is beneficial. Strichnine, arsenic, and chloral are all 
used as medicinal agents by physicians in diluted forms, 
and some, if not all, of them are habitually used for their 
soporific or narcotic effects by those who become slaves to 
their seductive influence, while probably none are more 
sensible of their injurious effects upon the human system 
than some of the victims of such unfortunate habits them- 
selves ; and every practising physician can attest their de- 
plorable consequences, both physically and mentally. 

" Tobacco, in its ordinary use, when introduced into the 
system in small quantities, by chewing, smoking, or snuff- 
ing, acts as a narcotic, and produces, for the time, a calm 
feeling of mind and body, a state of mild stupor and repose. 
This condition changes by reaction to one of nervous rest- 
lessness and a general feeling of muscular weakness when 
its habitual use is temporarily interrupted. In this condition 
the body and mind feel in need of stimulation, and there is 
danger that a resort to alcohol may be had. The use of 
alcohol is frequently induced by that of tobacco. Indeed, 
it is hard to find an inebriate who does not use tobacco ; 
and probably the statement that in nine out of ten inebriates 
the tobacco-habit was first formed is not an exaggeration. 
Its influence deranges the nervous system and initiates a 
tremor which suggests to the morbid taste of the user the 
soothing, sedative action of alcohol, and thus the allied 
poisons unite in forging the chains that bind them more 
closely to the use of both. 

" Botanically, tobacco belongs to the genus nicotiana and 
natural order solanacecs, and is the near kin to stramonium, 
henbane, and the deadly nightshade. It is characterized in 
the ' Encyclopaedia Americana' as 'a nauseous and poison- 

6 



62 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

ous weed, of an acrid taste and disagreeable odor,' — in short, 
whose only properties are deleterious. 

" If tobacco is a poison it ought to act as such, and it may 
be safely affirmed that it has no other action, — no use in 
medicine except to depress vitality. Thus it nauseates, it 
paralyzes the nerve-centres, producing relaxation of the 
muscular system and such dreadful prostration that medical 
literature is full of warning, and abounds with reported 
cases of poisoning, both from ingesting it into the stomach 
and from applying it externally." 

Medical testimony is abundant and emphatic to its dele- 
terious effects. Dr. Alcott says that <( even a small quantity 
introduced in the form of tea to relieve spasms has been 
known repeatedly to destroy life." Dr. Marshall Hall says, 
" The smoker cannot escape the poison of tobacco ; it gets 
into his blood, travels the whole round of the system, inter- 
feres with the heart's action and the general circulation, and 
affects every organ and fibre of the frame." Dr. Solly says, 
" I scarcely meet a friend who does not bear testimony to 
the mischief to which he has been the witness, in his own 
case or that of some friend, from tobacco." Says Dr. Water- 
house, " I never observed such pallid faces and so many 
marks of declining health, nor ever knew so many hectical 
habits and consumptive affections as of late years, and I 
trace this alarming inroad upon young constitutions principally 
to the pernicious custom of smoking cigars." Even the 
organ of the tobacco trade says, " Few things could be more 
pernicious for boys, growing youths, and persons of unformed 
constitution than the use of tobacco in any of its forms." 

" Tobacco," says Dr. H. Gibbons, " impairs digestion, 
poisons the blood, depresses the vital powers, causes the 
limbs to tremble, and weakens and otherwise disorders the 
heart." " I believe," says Dr. Fergus Ferguson, " that no 
one who smokes tobacco before the bodily powers are de- 
veloped can make a strong, vigorous man." 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME, 63 

A British surgeon examined thirty boy smokers between 
the ages of nine and fifteen years, and found serious disor- 
ders begun in twenty-two, with a more or less marked taste 
for strong drink, generated by the habit of smoking. 

Dr. Johnson says, " For one inveterate smoker, who will 
bear testimony favorable to the practice of smoking, ninety- 
nine are found to declare their belief that this practice is in- 
jurious; and I scarcely ever met with one habitual smoker 
who did not, in his candid moments, regret his commence- 
ment of the habit." 

Seventeen medical properties are ascribed to this drug ; 
but medical men note many more diseases resulting from 
the tobacco habit than there are properties in the drug 
itself. Of the diseases and infirmities which frequently 
result from the habit are mentioned cancer, especially of 
the lip and tongue, dimness of vision, deafness, loss of the 
sense of smell, perverted taste, dyspepsia, bronchitis, con- 
sumption, acne, hemorrhoids, palpitation, spinal weakness, 
chronic tonsillitis, anorexia, amorosis, caries of the teeth, 
coryza, ozaena, epilepsy, hypochondriasis, paralysis, impo- 
tency, apoplexy, tremors, delirium, insanity. Rev. Edward 
P. Thwing, in his essay entitled " Facts about Tobacco," 
cites numerous authenticated cases of disease and suffering 
arising from the baneful effects of this drug, and, among 
others, those of clergymen and zealous advocates of temper- 
ance, who, failing to see the inconsistency involved in their 
professions and practices, or being made conscious of it, 
either broke the chains that enslaved them by a desperate 
effort, or sank under the burden that they could not throw 
off. Some of these cases are intensely dramatic and others 
in a high degree tragic, and all of them are deeply interest- 
ing and instructive, and the reading of the entire essay will 
well repay the " lover of the weed" for giving it a careful 
perusal. 

It is not assumed that all those who have given attention 



64 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

to the subject, and who are presumably qualified to judge 
of the effects of tobacco upon the human system, are 
entirely agreed in regard to its effects ; and we fully recog- 
nize and appreciate the truth of the proposition that no 
cause, however good in its aims and purposes, can be 
essentially benefited by any exaggeration or perversion of 
facts, or any strained deductions from admitted facts. Zeal 
without knowledge, earnestness without candor and fairness, 
are not only vain and futile to accomplish the good that may 
be intended, but often bring contempt upon the advocates 
of a good cause and reproach to the cause itself. We have 
stated the opinions and observations of eminent physicians 
and scientists for the purpose of showing the deleterious 
effects of tobacco as commonly used, and they are such as 
accord with our own experience and the limited observation 
we have had opportunity for making. Having chewed the 
weed for a period of about twenty-one years (from 1832 to 
1853), and struggled with the appetite that was stronger 
than we until compelled to choose between its continued in- 
dulgence and the prospect of a premature demise or such 
an exertion of the will as to overcome the habit, we can 
well understand what has been its effects upon others, and 
know how to sympathize with those who have acquired an 
insatiable appetite for a stimulant or narcotic. That tobacco 
and alcohol and the other poisonous substances we have 
referred to may be used for beneficial purposes, we have no 
doubt, nor can we doubt that the habitual use of any such 
substance is injurious in its effects upon the human system, 
and tends to the destruction of body and mind and of life 
itself. 

Dr. Hare, of the University of Pennsylvania, in his late 
dissertation on the " Physiological and Pathological Effects 
of Tobacco," says, " When we consider the vast number 
of the human race who use tobacco, and the enormous 
quantity which they consume, we can hardly avoid coming 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



65 



to the same conclusion as Dr. Anstie, that while the use of 
tobacco is in some cases highly injurious, in others it has 
very little effect. To the young, especially, tobacco is a 
perfect curse, stunting their development, injuring irrepar- 
ably their general physique and growth, and often entirely 
altering their dispositions by bringing on a state of constant 
irritability. Its use is to be condemned in those of a san- 
guine and nervous temperament, and to be at least winked 
at, if not approved of, in those whose temperament is more 
phlegmatic and less easily disturbed." This writer even 
goes further than this, and asserts that " to the aged, who by 
long use have become accustomed to the drug, it is an 
actual necessity for health or happiness. Withdraw for one 
day the accustomed smokes of an old man, and see how 
miserable he becomes." " This," says Dr. Hare, " is not 
entirely a feeling brought about by mental desire for the 
drug, but because his system must have its accustomed dose 
of tobacco." And he adds, " The writer knows an old man 
personally, who after being out for a few hours will come 
into his house pale, feeble, and exhausted, so nervous, too, 
that he can hardly articulate, but who becomes quiet and 
comfortable after a few draws at his well-beloved pipe." 
We do not doubt the literal truth of this statement of Dr. 
Hare. But we also personally know an old man (now in 
his eightieth year) who thirty-three years ago was in nearly 
a like condition, who not only had no mental desire for the 
drug, but a strong mental aversion to its use, but whose 
whole system had become so tobacconized by chewing it 
moderately for a few years that its disuse for a few hours 
would produce pallor, dizziness, and a feeling of exhaustion, 
which could only be quieted by a quid of the filthy weed. 
This last-mentioned old man, after having the tobacco ex- 
purgated from his system and recovering from most of its 
deleterious effects, has not felt the need of any new supply 
of the narcotic to render him quiet and comfortable, and 
e 6* 



66 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

most firmly believes that by discontinuing its use he has 
extended the duration of his life for perhaps a decade, if 
not a score of years. Dr. Hare expresses the opinion that 
to the laborer, or the man whose avocation keeps him out 
of doors, it is probable that tobacco rarely does harm, and 
that in cases of great physical fatigue it is often of use, 
calming the restlessness so often present after a hard day's 
tramp in the open air ; but that to the man of business who 
is confined to an office and desk all day, to the hard student 
or the sickly, tobacco is decidedly harmful. 

" After all," says Dr. Hare, " the whole question of tobacco 
use depends upon the quantity consumed, and the user of 
tobacco must gauge his use of ' the weed' not by the 
amount another man can stand without harm, but by the 
power which he finds the drug can exercise in his own 
person. Moderation is not the use of a small quantity of 
tobacco, but the use of such a small quantity that its re- 
sults are not serious." Dr. Hare further says, " Certainly 
opium and hasheesh, and tobacco too, for that matter, are 
capable of producing great evils if they are used in excess, 
but not if moderation of a strict type be adhered to. After 
all, tobacco is only one of the numerous luxuries with 
which mankind enjoy themselves, and coffee and tea have 
probably produced an equal number of victims." 

Dr. Hare says that he " considers that the enormous use 
of tobacco is probably the instinctive desire for some article 
which will retard tissue-waste. Indeed, all drugs which 
prevent the excretion of nitrogenous material have been 
sought after since the earliest history of man, and we can 
be pretty sure that a drug which is used everywhere, and by 
everybody, is one which helps a man to stand the jar and 
worry of business or other pursuits. Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, 
all retard tissue-waste, and therefore men, women, and chil- 
dren long for them, and, from using them instinctively and 
for a purpose, they soon use them in excess and as a luxury." 



INTEMPERANCE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



6 7 



The brute is guided by instinct to reject the poison that 
would injure or destroy and to use the food which is adapted 
to its well-being; while the human being has been com- 
pelled to determine by experiment what was useful for food 
and what was hurtful, and was endowed with the faculties 
of reason and memory to enable him to choose what ex- 
perience taught him was good and to reject what was inju- 
rious. That " men, women, and children long" for " tobacco, 
coffee, and alcohol, and use them instinctively for a purpose," 
as stated by Dr. Hare, is a startling proposition, and appears 
to us to be a very extravagant and unwarrantable one ; but 
that they soon learn to use them in excess and as a luxury, 
when the natural repugnance to their use is overcome and 
an appetite for them is acquired, is a fact of general obser- 
vation, and forcibly suggests to every candid mind the ex- 
ceeding danger in using them at all. Coffee and tea have 
their victims ; but as a beverage or narcotic, alcohol, opium, 
and tobacco probably destroy thousands where coffee and 
tea destroy hundreds. But even if the coffee were equally 
injurious, that fact would not detract one iota from the force 
of the argument against the use of alcohol, tobacco, or any 
other poisonous substance. 

In closing our discussion of " Intemperance as a cause 
of Crime," it seems proper to remind the reader that we 
have not undertaken to write a dissertation upon the uses 
and abuses of alcoholic drinks or of poisonous drugs. We 
have only stated such facts in regard to them, as they are 
commonly used, as tended to prove that intemperance in 
the use of intoxicating drinks has been one of the most 
fruitful causes of crime, and that tobacco and other drugs 
in common use are deleterious and lead to the intemperate 
use of strong drinks, and thus indirectly to crime. 



68 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

CHAPTER V. 

IGNORANCE A CAUSE OF CRIME. 

" Learn to live, and live to learn, 
Ignorance like a fire doth burn." 

Bayard Taylor. 

" First upon his path stood Ignorance, 
Hideous in his brutal might." 

Ignorance is rather a negative than an active source of 
crime. By ignorance in this relation we do not mean the 
want of such intellectual training alone as the schools afford, 
but a want of that physical and ethical training and culture 
which are necessary in order to prepare men and women to 
be good citizens, and to fit them for usefulness to themselves 
and others in all the relations of public and private life; 
ignorance of the interest which all have in abstaining from 
evil and learning to do well ; ignorance of the value of 
character and a pure life ; ignorance of those high aims and 
purposes which elevate men in the scale of being and raise 
them above the dominion of appetite, passion, and sensual 
indulgence, and make them masters of themselves and the 
governors of their impulses. 

Intellectual attainments are in themselves neither good 
nor bad. Knowledge and wisdom are not the same. 
" Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, have ofttimes 
no connection." The former is a perception of that which 
exists, or of truth and fact ; learning ; illumination oftqjiind ; 
skill. Wisdom is the right use or exercise of knowledge ; 
the choice of laudable ends, and of the best means to ac- 
complish them. As a faculty of the mind it is the faculty 
of discerning or judging what is most just, beneficent, use- 
ful; and considered as an acquirement it is the knowledge 



IGNORANCE A CAUSE OF CRIME. fig 

and use of what is best, most just, most proper, most con- 
ducive to prosperity or happiness. " Wisdom," says the 
proverb, " is the principal thing ; therefore get wisdom ; and 
with all thy getting get understanding." " Happy is the 
man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth under- 
standing. She is more precious than rubies : and all the 
things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her." 
Not that wisdom which consists of the craft and artifices 
of men in promoting their selfish ends, not quickness of in- 
tellect and dexterity of execution alone ; not a knowledge 
of arts, sciences, and literature merely, but that higher and 
more enlightened wisdom which applies knowledge to the 
attainment of what is best and most useful. 

That " ignorance is the parent of many vices" has long 
since passed into a proverb. No man with a clear percep- 
tion of what is right and just, and of what is wrong, and 
of the duty which he owes to himself and others, and of 
the ultimate consequences of his actions, can ever choose> 
to commit a wrong. It is that ignorance, therefore, which 
is the antithesis of wisdom, that is the cause of crime. 
This ignorance results mainly either from a false education 
or the want of a proper education of youth. The proposi- 
tion that the welfare of the State depends upon the proper 
education of its citizens, and that it is therefore its duty to 
provide for such education of all the children and youths 
within its jurisdiction as is calculated to make them intelli- 
gent, peaceable, and useful citizens, is fully recognized as 
true in most of the Commonwealths of the Union, and, as 
far as its powers extend, by the government of the United 
States ; but our methods for the attainment of so great and 
noble a purpose have been and are sadly defective, and for 
obvious reasons must continue so for a considerable time to 
come. 

Free schools are established and supported by assess- 
ments upon the taxable property of the country, and school- 



7° 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



houses and teachers are provided in every neighborhood, 
as well as books for those whose parents or guardians are 
unable to furnish them, and free libraries are supported at 
public expense in every city and township. All the ele- 
mentary branches of knowledge are taught in the primary 
schools, and arts, science, and literature in our high-schools 
and colleges ; but all these may leave the man ignorant of 
the nature and requirements of his physical organism, and 
the means of securing and perpetuating physical health and 
soundness of body, without which the highest degree of 
mental and moral soundness may not be expected to exist. 
This ignorance is the cause of those " errors of youth" 
which are so prevalent in civilized communities, and which 
undermine the physical and mental constitution, and often 
result in insanity, moral pollution, and premature death. 

Physiologists and medical writers tell us that those 
" secret vices" are practised more extensively among pupils 
in schools than elsewhere. This is due to the fault of 
parents and teachers, who, from their own ignorance or 
false notions of delicacy, fail to instruct those under their 
care in regard to the nature and uses of those delicate and 
sensitive organs upon the healthful condition of which the 
welfare of the individual depends, and to guard them against 
those abuses which are inevitably disastrous to health and 
happiness, and whose consequences may become a sad in- 
heritance of weakness and imbecility to their descendants. 

Man is endowed with a physical, a mental, and a moral 
constitution, and each of these requires to be developed 
and carefully trained by his teachers. The education of 
the schools is directed mainly to the cultivation of the in- 
tellect, and may leave the student who has graduated with 
the highest honors ignorant of the practical duties of life, 
and of his obligations to himself and to others in the various 
relations, domestic, social and political, in which he is to exist. 
The education of his moral perceptions and faculties may 



IGNORANCE A CAUSE OF CRIME. y l 

have been entirely neglected, and his ethical nature — the 
most important of all — left to become a barren waste. If 
he has failed to learn that manhood and character are better 
than knowledge, he may possess great intellectual power 
and extensive learning, but may be neither a good or useful 
citizen. On the contrary, his great intellectual strength may 
be directed solely to the gratification of selfish and unholy 
ambitions, or of sensual appetites and passions, involving 
himself and others in crime and consequent ruin. History 
affords us hundreds of examples of such men in all ages of 
the world since knowledge became an object of pursuit for 
the sake of the power which it gives to its possessor over 
his weaker brothers. During our brief history as a people, 
our own country has furnished striking examples of men of 
extraordinary intellectual vigor and extensive knowledge 
who were habitually guilty of great vices, and some of whose 
characters were stained with great crimes. Not only the 
great good that such men might have done, had their moral 
nature been properly cultivated and developed, is lost to the 
world, but their pernicious example and evil conduct have 
caused the ruin of many. They die, and better men eulo- 
gize them for their brilliant mental endowments and achieve- 
ments, but shrink from allusion to their vices and crimes, 
charitably preferring to leave them to such judgment as the 
mysteries of death and the hereafter may have in reserve 
for them. 

There are in every city a large number of idle boys, ap- 
parently running wild and neglected, who not only receive 
little or no moral instruction, but who live in an atmosphere 
of vice, and whose teaching is in the direction of mischief 
leading to crime. They are, in general, the children of 
criminals, or of ignorant and degraded or drunken parents, 
who make no effort to secure for them moral or industrial 
education, without which they are likely to become a dis- 
grace to humanity and a burden and curse to the com- 



7 2 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



munity. The condition of their lives has a natural tendency 
to create an aversion to labor or any steady application to 
industrial pursuits, while these afford the only means by 
which they can become self-supporting and useful citizens. 
The State has an especial interest in the welfare of these 
unfortunate youths, and cannot afford to ignore the duty it 
owes to the whole body politic to provide for the control 
and proper instruction and training of this class of boys in 
the ways of honesty, sobriety, and industry, instead of 
leaving them to become a bane and terror to her orderly 
and peaceable citizens. 

Mr. A. B. Richmond, in " Leaves from the Diary of an 
Old Lawyer," gives the following graphic description of the 
" hoodlums and street Arabs" in a large commercial town. 
Mr. Richmond says, "At the usual terms of our court, after 
the sentences have been passed upon the old and grave 
offenders of the law, the sheriff ushers into the court-room 
a number of small boys from ten to fifteen years of age. 
All dirty and unkempt they come. Precocious in vice, they 
seem to be the very embodiment of the genius of original 
sin. Young and hardy plants of transgression and crime, 
they need no hot-house or gardener's care to fully develop 
them into house-breakers, thieves, and robbers. They are 
the natural and spontaneous growth of the soil, the weeds 
and thistle-plants of society, scattered by fate along the by- 
ways of life. Born of drunken and vicious parents in the 
purlieus of vice, from the hour of their birth they have been 
surrounded by every bad and corrupting influence. The 
thieves' vocabulary their mother-tongue, the oath profane, 
the ribald song of the low drinking-houses have been 
familiar to their ears since infancy. A mother's love they 
never knew. A father's care they never had. They are 
the * hoodlums' and street Arabs, begotten of drunkenness 
and debauchery. It is no fault of theirs that they have 
been thrust into this world to suffer cold and hunger, and 



IGNORANCE A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



73 



compelled by the unfortunate surroundings of their child- 
hood to steal or starve. Accustomed to sleep under the 
wharves and bridges, or in empty hogsheads and dry-goods 
boxes, gleaning their miserable food from the garbage- 
barrels in the streets, the prison to them a palace, and the 
plain, wholesome prison food a feast of good things they 
may have ' dreamed of but not enjoyed,' what wonder is it 
that they are what they are, that grave and learned judges 
are at a loss to know how to deal with them, and that they 
are a part of our social system yet unsolved ! . . . Many 
of them are bright and intelligent, with innate capacities for 
great good or evil ; with proper care and education they 
may be made useful men and good citizens. Yes, in that 
group of ragged, dirty outcasts there may be, perhaps, 

' Some mute inglorious Milton, or 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.' " 

"The child's the father of the man." He comes into the 
light of this world the most ignorant and helpless of all 
animals that are born. His existence is to the wisest a 
great mystery. The only evidence he gives that he is con- 
scious of his own being is the instinctive cry for sustenance 
which he craves in common with the young of all other 
animals. A few months ago he was not, but to-day he is. 
He has not chosen to be, nor from what parentage he 
should spring, nor what should be his surroundings in in- 
fancy or in youth. He is a creature of circumstances over 
which he had and has no control. His infant veins may 
contain the seeds of scrofula, consumption, or any other of 
the physical diseases to which his ancestors were subject, 
even to the third or fourth of the genealogical line. The 
germs of vice and crime may have been implanted in his 
moral nature. He may have inherited an uncontrollable 
appetite for strong drink, or a disposition to steal and de- 
fraud, or to rob and murder. 
d 7 



74 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

As his physical and mental faculties are developed he 
finds himself and all things that exist subject to inexorable 
laws, and discovers that unless his life and actions are in 
harmony with these laws, and conformable to their demands, 
a fearful retribution awaits him. There is but one straight 
and narrow path in which he can walk with safety, which 
few, if any, have ever found ; and however weak or blind 
or burdened with the consequences of others' sins he may 
be, he must find it and pursue it at his peril, and if he fail to 
do so the law, which he is bound to know but does not, 
will grind him to powder. Ignorantia lex non excusat is a 
maxim which admits of no exceptions in the operations of 
nature. Fire will burn him, cold will freeze him, and poison 
destroy his health or extinguish his life. And when his 
moral perceptions are opened he also finds a law of his 
moral nature equally exacting, and whose sanctions are 
equally certain and terrible. This law declares to him that 
" though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be un- 
punished," and this declaration ever has been, is now, and 
ever will be, true, and none can ever possibly evade or be 
exempted from it. " The soul that sinneth, it shall die," 
and no saviour that does not save from its commission can 
save it from the consequences of sin. 

Fortunate are they who have inherited a good physical 
constitution and such mental and moral qualities as make it 
natural for them to walk in the ways of wisdom, and to love 
mercy, justice, and right, and whose surroundings are favor- 
able to the development of the good and the suppression of 
the evil towards which their natures would otherwise tend. 

Whatever qualities he may possess, he is a part of the 
universe, a creature of infinite possibilities, and is related to 
everything that exists. His life may influence the lives of 
thousands for good or for evil. The world has an interest 
in every child that is born into it, and it is the interest and 
duty of the State to see that every child has the instruction 



IDLENESS AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 



75 



and training necessary to develop his capabilities for useful- 
ness and right living in accordance with the laws of his 
physical, mental, and moral being. 

" Mysterious oft it seems to me 
How I a being come to be, 
Since through the myriad years gone by 
Suns rose and set, but lived not I." 

R.ICHA.RD HOWITT. 



CHAPTER VI. 

IDLENESS AS A CAUSE OF CRIME. 

Idleness is nearly related to ignorance and leads to many 
vices and crimes. The diligent pursuit of some useful 
labor, business, or calling is as necessary to the growth and 
development of manhood and self-respect as wholesome 
food is to the growth and health of the physical frame. 
The idle youth naturally falls into association with the 
street Arabs and hoodlums, and imbibes their contempt of 
labor and good morals, and is likely to become a tramp or 
vagrant, and, like him, seek to live upon the fruits of others' 
labor without giving any equivalent for what he lives on. 

" Nay," says Carlyle, " I will thank the great God that 
He has said, in whatever fearful ways and just wrath against 
us, ' Idleness shall be no more.' " " Idleness ? The 
awakened soul of man, all but the asphyxied soul of man, 
turns from it as from worse than death. It is the life-in- 
death of Poet Coleridge." 

To be idle, as the term is here used, is to be unemployed 
in any useful occupation. " To be idle," says Dr. Johnson, 
" is to be vicious." This may be illustrated in many ways, 
and such illustrations will be found in the following chapters 
in connection with the subjects of education and employment 
in industrial pursuits. 



7 6 



A 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



CHAPTER VII. 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION AS CAUSES 

OF CRIME. 

" Avarice sheds a blasting influence on the finest affections and sweetest 
comforts of mankind." — Buckminster. 

We have embraced in our definition of crime not only 
those wrongs which the laws of the State denounce and 
punish as such, but also all those great wrongs which men 
commit against individuals or the public for selfish ends, 
against conscience, and against right and justice, for which 
the laws of the land provide no punishment by fine and 
imprisonment, but which must in some way be fully and 
fearfully avenged, according to the inexorable principles of 
the higher law of righteousness and equity. 

The desire to accumulate property by fair and honest 
means, and for the purpose of using it to benefit those whom 
it may be our duty to provide for or aid in the struggle for 
subsistence, is not only natural and salutary in itself, but is 
called into exercise by the law of kindness and brotherly 
love, and that sense of moral obligation which an enlight- 
ened conscience enjoins upon all who possess the ability to 
labor for their own and others' good. The mental and 
physical labor which such a desire stimulates to the per- 
formance of, tend to ennoble and elevate manhood, and 
afford the highest satisfaction to the mind and heart of the 
man who justly appreciates the blessings that such labor 
can procure. It embraces the elements of unselfish gener- 
osity, philanthropy, sacrifice, and good will, and commands 
the unqualified approbation of the wise and good every- 
where, and in all time. 



A VARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAI AMBITION. 



77 



But when we consider the quality of avarice, or the in- 
ordinate desire of gaining and possessing wealth for ignoble 
and selfish ends, and the wrong and injustice which it impels 
its possessor to commit, we find it the source of grave of- 
fences against the rights of humanity. It is the greed of 
gain that adulterates or assimilates a large portion of our 
daily food and sells it to us under the names of pure un- 
adulterated articles. Some of the substances used for this 
purpose are poisonous and injurious to health, and all of 
them of little or no intrinsic value, when not positively 
hurtful. They are mingled with food substances for pur- 
poses of fraud and deceit, and are such as cannot be easily 
detected without chemical analysis. The report of the 
Michigan State Board of Health for 1882 contains an article 
on food adulterations by Dr. Prescott, in which he treats of 
the office and purpose of food. He says, " It is the sub- 
stance which builds the fibre of muscle and of bone ; it is 
the force that supports the steady work of the heart, the 
even movement of the lungs, the full power of the brain, 
the quiet steadiness of the nerves. If a horse is to be 
trained, careful attention is given to his food. The human 
body requires more fine and sturdy material than the body 
of a horse. The forces of physical life in man demand a 
more generous substance than the forces of life in an animal. 
Food modifies manhood and influences national character- 
istics." 

" Opposite to food is poison. We fear to be poisoned 
more than to be starved. Animals are given instinct to find 
their food, with rejection of poison ; man does the same by 
reason and observation. Tests of skill are demanded, and 
safety requires that the invention of the analyst shall keep 
pace with the invention of the manufacturer. But it is not 
for poison alone that scrutiny must be devoted to food. In 
the failure of good faith a thousand tamperings may occur. 
A poorer article is substituted for a better one, a cheap 

7* 



7* 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



thing is colored to imitate one of more value, an article 
of good quality is diluted for greater weight or volume. 
Foods are purchased and used under the name and upon 
the reputation of articles belonging to another hemisphere. 
A man proceeds to select suitable food for his family, and is 
robbed of his privilege of choice by the unrestricted circu- 
lation of counterfeits. As is said, in the bitter voice of a 
poet not often bitter, — 

" Chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, 
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life." 

Dr. Prescott says, " One of the most stupendous substitu- 
tions ever accomplished is now in the height of a brief 
career in this country. It is the annual manufacture of as 
much as a third of a million tons of corn-starch sugar, all 
of which steals its way through the avenues of trade under 
the guise of ordinary cane-sugar. The solid sugar, called 
grape-sugar at the factories, is mostly mixed with cane- 
sugar. The syrups, called glucose, require but little mix- 
ture of cane-sugar to fit them for the market. While real 
cane-sugars have been carried through the course of trade 
at slight and insufficient profit, the consumer of this article 
probably pays from three hundred to eight hundred per 
cent, above its cost. It is stated that the factories could sell 
it at one and a half to two cents per pound, and do sell it at 
three or four cents per pound. It is sold at as good prices 
as other sugars, but it is not sold at all to consumers under 
its own name, so far as can be learned. An article of un- 
mixed grape-sugar pressed in cubes is sold as cut sugar." 

These " stupendous substitutions" appear to be without 
abatement, and bid fair to have a long career unless sup- 
pressed or regulated under efficient legislative intervention. 
" Another manufacture of extensive proportions," says Dr. 
Prescott, " is that of purified beef-tallow, prepared for table 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. yg 

use, and colored to resemble butter. Under the name of 
oleomargarine the public has been well advised that, though 
it may be wholesome nourishment, it is not butter, and 
under this adopted name, which seems to distinguish the 
article, though it is a misnomer, the presentation to the 
public is wholly legitimate. As a digestible food it will 
probably be found to rank much below butter. This article 
is made to resemble butter so nearly, in appearance and 
taste, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish it 
from butter without chemical analysis. The fraud consists 
in selling it under a false name and as a substance which 
it is not." 

Numerous other fraudulent adulterations of foods and 
drinks are generally known, such as of tea, coffee, v/ines, 
and other liquors, pepper, ginger, cloves, and other ground 
spices. Most cruel, perhaps, and disastrous of all to the 
denizens of our large cities is the sale of adulterated or 
otherwise unwholesome milk. If it were only used by 
adults in connection with other foods which are sufficient 
for the support of life, it would be a fraud and a crime ; 
but when it is considered that the milk of the cow is the 
only food of thousands of infant children, whose mothers 
cannot or will not give them their natural sustenance, from 
the time of their birth until they are able to digest stronger 
food, and that in consequence of the impurity of the milk 
furnished the death-rate of children in cities under five 
years of age amounts to forty-five per cent, of the entire 
number of deaths among the population, the criminality of 
those who are instrumental in bringing about this " slaughter 
of the innocents" is calculated to shock the feelings and ex- 
cite the indignation of every humane person. Can the un- 
hallowed greed of gain inspire the commission of acts more 
cruel and inhuman? Those who supply the impure or 
diluted article to the consumers do not deliberately intend 
to be instrumental in causing disease or death, and are 



So CAUSES OF CRIME. 

perhaps ignorant of the consequences of the fraud they 
commit. But will not an awakened and more enlightened 
conscience some time cause them to see the evil they have 
wrought, and visit them with the just retribution due to 
their reckless disregard of others' rights in order to gratify 
their covetous desires and selfish ambitions ? 

The importance of the proper selection of appropriate 
food can hardly be over-estimated. Says Dr. V. C. Vaughan, 
" Certainly it cannot be denied that the kind of food influ- 
ences greatly the physical condition of nations. With the 
potato the Irishman lived, and when this crop failed he died. 
. . . When the potato was almost the only food, scrofula 
and its kindred diseases visited the Emerald Island every 
year ; but since the introduction of corn into the country 
the people have become less susceptible to disease. We 
have another lesson by the study of the gradual rise of the 
people of England. In that country the type of disease 
has changed radically, and there has been a corresponding 
change in the food of the people. During the fourteenth, 
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries the Englishman was more 
brutal than human. This was partly due to his food and 
partly to other conditions. The ancient baron consumed 
flesh almost with the same eagerness that the king of the 
forest consumed his prey. A well-known historian says, 
1 Bloodshed and robbery were universal. Two-thirds of the 
country were moor, forest, or vast swamps ; the houses 
were small and squalid, built of wood and thatched with 
straw, without chimneys or other conveniences ; the floors 
without boards or bricks, and covered with straw or hay, 
which remained for months saturated with reeking filth ; 
the streets of London were narrow, unpaved, and filled with 
refuse of all kinds ; the towns . and many of the individual 
houses were surrounded by ditches which were filled with 
filth.' Take such surroundings as these, and then load the 
man's stomach with the poisons — urea, uric acid, etc. — 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION 8 1 

arising from the excessive consumption of flesh, and you 
make him more of a brute than a man." 

Incontestable facts show that not only the physical well- 
being of an individual or a nation depends very largely 
upon the kind and quality of the food consumed, but also 
that the moral character and constitution are greatly influ- 
enced by the physical health. If food adulterations are 
poisonous, they engender disease; if not poisonous, but 
merely innutritious, their effect is to defraud the human 
organism of the sustenance it needs and deprive it of the 
energy and vigor which unadulterated food of the proper 
kind would supply. 

We have laws upon our statute-books intended to prevent 
and punish these frauds and abuses, but these laws are not 
enforced, and seem to be entirely disregarded by dealers in 
food material everywhere to accumulate money and gratify 
the spirit of avarice. Money still is power, and men have 
learned that 

" Friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, 
These are the gifts of money. . . . 
Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips 
Your tongue and Venus settles on your lips. 

Get money still, 
And then let Virtue follow — if she will." 

It is avarice that prompts the dealer or trader in goods to 
misrepresent the quality and value of his wares, and to take 
advantage of the ignorance or necessities of purchasers and 
defraud them by delusive and false pretences. Goods are 
every day advertised to be sold at the purchaser's own 
price, at cost, or at twenty-five or fifty per cent, below cost, 
at special prices, or with a gift or a lottery-ticket, etc. 
Several in the same line of trade advertise the best goods 
at the lowest prices of any dealer in the town or State. 
Goods are offered as all wool, all linen, or silk, which the 
advertiser knows are largely composed of cotton; or as 
/ 



g 2 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

French or Italian stuffs of certain quality which were never 
within two thousand miles of France or Italy. The goods 
may be sold at as low a price as they can be afforded for, 
and the purchaser may get the worth of his money ; or he 
may (understanding the custom of dealers to overrate and 
misrepresent their goods) fully understand that he is not 
getting what they are represented to be, and thus not be 
deceived thereby. The merchant, too, knowing that pur- 
chasers generally understand it to be the universal custom 
and usage of trade for the seller to represent all articles of 
sale as something better than they really are, as well as for 
the buyer to say " It is naught," finds reason for believing 
that, if he represents them honestly and truly as he knows 
them to be, his customers would be few and his profits 
small, and justifies himself in adhering to the common 
usage. Travellers represent the wild Arabs of the desert to 
be such liars that no reliance can be placed on their state- 
ments. Are we also such falsifiers of facts that our state- 
ments are not to be relied upon, but must be taken as untrue 
whenever self-interest and truth are opposed to each other ? 
Taking the most lenient and charitable view we can of the 
dealings of men in the purchase and sale or exchange of 
property as they occur daily with millions of our people, 
and comparing the standard of moral principles which if 
adopted and acted upon, with that simple rule of right and 
justice which requires that a man shall love his neighbor as 
himself, and shall do unto others as he would that others 
should in like circumstances do unto him, and the contrast 
indicates that our condition in the scale of moral progression 
requires to be greatly elevated and improved before our 
dealings with each other can be justly regarded as fair and 
honest. 

The covetous man takes advantage of the wants or necessi- 
ties of his less fortunate brother, and exacts from him exor- 
bitant rates of interest, and does not hesitate to take the 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. 83 

property given in pledge as his security at a tithe of its 
value. He it is that " devours widows' houses, and for a 
pretence makes long prayers," or prays only to mammon. 

All betting and gaming are unlawful and iniquitous, yet 
in all our large cities, and many smaller ones, and at all 
places of resort for purposes of amusement or recreation, 
gaming and betting upon the result of all kinds of races, 
fights, or trials of skill, strength, or agility by man or other 
animals are constantly practised, and generally with entire 
impunity. Their corrupting influence would not be ques- 
tioned by one in a thousand of our citizens, nor is it proba- 
ble that one in ten thousand would vote for a repeal of the 
laws which forbid these practices. Yet they are only en- 
forced spasmodically, if at all. Lotteries and the sale or 
advertising of lottery tickets are forbidden, but all sorts of 
schemes involving the same principle are concocted and put 
in operation, appealing to the cupidity of such as may be 
tempted to invest in them with the hope of gaining what 
they give no adequate consideration for, and where all gain 
arises from others' loss. 

Our statutes for preserving the purity of elections not 
only forbid all betting upon the result, but provide punish- 
ment for using any means to unduly influence the action of 
any elector in casting his ballot. But when has an election 
of a President of the United States or of State officers or 
members of Congress occurred, during the last quarter of a 
century, when immense sums of money have not been " put 
up" and " changed hands" in consequence of the result ? 
And when has a general election been held within the same 
period when vast amounts of money have not been raised 
and used by the candidates and their political party friends 
for the avowed purpose of unduly influencing votes by de- 
ceiving some and tempting the cupidity or ambition of 
others, and pandering to the depraved appetites of many ? 
The means habitually resorted to for these purposes are 



8 4 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



well known ; and it is well understood that in every district 
where the result is considered at all doubtful, the candidates 
themselves are expected to, and generally do, contribute a 
round sum to the fund known as " the election fund," and 
popularly and very appropriately designated " election cor- 
ruption fund." 

During the excitement of an important election, when 
party feeling runs high and so many are struggling for 
victory, the desire for success is the dominant and control- 
ling impulse, and the character of the means employed to 
secure it is little thought of, and the fact that large bets 
have been made tend to stimulate men to adopt any 
available means to insure success, however questionable 
or clearly unlawful. 

The man who secretly takes my property with intent to 
deprive me of it, or who is intrusted with my money and 
embezzles it, is held to be guilty of larceny; and if the 
value of the thing stolen is twenty-five dollars or more, or 
is taken from the person, the crime is a felony. Why should 
not he be deemed equally guilty who deliberately, by trick 
/• or artifice, or superior skill or judgment, or by taking ad- 
vantage of my weakness or incapacity, possesses himself of 
my property, giving me no equivalent for the same ? The 
wrong is the same, and the means of its accomplishment 
more cowardly than those by which the thief or burglar 
seeks to secure the fruits of his wrong-doing, and why 
should not the animus of such wrong-doer be deemed 
equally criminal ? Avarice seeks its own gratification, and 
is never satisfied. It is unscrupulous in regard to the means 
by which its ends are accomplished, and centres all its mo- 
tives in self, regardless of consequences to others. It seeks 
to accumulate wealth by absorbing what justly belongs to 
others. The bulls and the bears manipulate the market in 
our great commercial centres, each striving to accomplish 
what may be the other's ruin. Corners in stocks, in bread- 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION S$ 

stuffs, and other products of human industry and skill, the 
watering of stocks of great railroad and other corporations, 
the buying and selling of margins at the " bucket shops," 
dealing in "puts and calls" and "futures," lotteries, and 
other like gambling operations are all of the same character. 
Those who have most have the most power, and, with 
shrewdness and sharpness, they are the winners. Wealth 
is not increased by gambling or speculation, but is turned 
into the hands of those who are the most unscrupulous and 
least worthy. 

Four or five centuries ago our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 
lived largely by the violent plundering of their neighbors 
and of each other, and each feudal lord supported a band 
of armed retainers for this purpose. We are accustomed 
to read the history of their deeds of violence, robbery, and 
bloodshed with feelings of horror, and to congratulate our- 
selves that the times of such sanguinary deeds of rapine 
and terror have passed away, and that we are living in an 
era of civilization and enlightenment, wherein the just rights 
of all are respected and protected by laws which are en- 
forced by the government and generally respected and 
obeyed. If any candid man of ordinary intelligence should 
say, as many anarchists in the old world and some in our 
own country are saying, that all accumulation of property 
is robbery, and that the social and political condition of the 
people is no better than it was during those periods of 
turbulence and lawlessness, we should not hesitate to pro- 
nounce such an one insane. But when we contemplate the 
innumerable wrongs that are constantly being committed 
by the strong against the weak, the sharp against the 
simple, the powerful against those who are helpless, some 
of them against law, and many of them tolerated and even 
encouraged and protected by law, and all proceeding from the 
promptings of avarice or personal selfish -ambition, we may 
well ask how much less of wrong and outrage are perpe- 

8 



g5 CAUSES OF CRIME, 

trated in these days of intellectual enlightenment than 
during those periods which we are accustomed to refer to 
as " the dark ages ?" 

Computed by numbers, the wrongs of the present age 
probably equal, and perhaps exceed, those of preceding 
ages ; but in their character and consequences those of the 
present age, in general, bear no comparison to those of ,the 
past. The power of the savage and barbarian is mainly in 
the physical. In civilized society it is mainly in the mental 
and moral. A body of civilized men, seeking only the 
gratification of their sensuous natures, restrained by no 
sense of moral right or obligation, inspire universal terror 
and apprehension by the depredations they commit in the 
pursuit of their objects. Acts of violence in civilized com- 
munities, where education is general and knowledge dif- 
fused among the people, are comparatively few, and, ex- 
cepting in cases of rebellion against the government, or 
attempted revolution, or war between nations, which are 
usually of short duration, excite no general alarm or dis- 
quietude. 

Most of the wrongs which proceed from avarice and am- 
bition are committed quietly, the perpetrator and the victim, 
in many cases, each striving to victimize the other, as in 
betting and gaming. Generosity, benevolence, conscien- 
tiousness, are the opposites of avarice and cupidity. These 
restrain men from invading the just rights of others. The 
just man holds what he possesses as a trust to be adminis- 
tered (i) for the promotion of his own physical health and 
the development of his intellectual and moral faculties, in 
order that his capacity to benefit others may be increased ; 
(2) to make suitable provision for the comfort and mental 
and moral culture of those immediately dependent upon 
him ; and (3) for promoting the happiness and welfare of 
others in general, and especially for assisting those whose 
misfortunes call for friendly aid and encouragement. 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. 87 

Avarice is not the sole cause of the frauds that are perpe- 
trated and the crimes that are committed for pecuniary gain. 
There are many men of sharp intellect, but whose moral 
faculties have not been developed, who, though capable of 
earning an honest living, instead of engaging in some use- 
ful occupation, prefer to acquire the means of living by the 
habitual practice of fraud, deception, and humbuggery, and 
making dupes of the credulous, some for the purpose of 
acquiring riches, and more, perhaps, for the purpose of 
obtaining the means of gratifying their sensual appetites 
and passions than for hoarding wealth. This class of men 
are generally irresponsible, having no fixed habitation, no 
good name to defend or protect, but assuming many dif- 
ferent names and characters, and advertising their pretended 
business as located in various places, and under as many 
high-sounding firm-names and styles as may suit their pur- 
poses and enable them to evade police scrutiny and inter- 
ference. 

Some of them are roving in their habits, and sometimes 
hunt in couples, and sometimes singly, as the game they 
are seeking may require. One advertises in the guise of a 
retired physician or clergyman, whose sands of life are 
nearly run out, and who has been snatched from the jaws 
of death by some remedy, the secret of which he will reveal 
to those similarly afflicted on receipt of a few postage- 
stamps. One is the distinguished Dr. J. P. M., who, to re- 
cruit his shattered health, which has been ruined by his 
former laborious practice, penetrated to the very heart of 
Africa, and there, by reason of the privileges accorded him 
by King Munza, discovered a remedy for disease such as 
the civilized world had never seen or heard of, and which he 
is ready to dispense for the healing of his afflicted fellow- 
creatures, under the name of " Monbutto coca compound/' 
for an adequate consideration. How this shattered invalid 
penetrated to the very heart of Africa, and how he got 



8$ CAUSES OF CRIME. 

away with sufficient Monbutto coca for the healing of the 
nations, when Livingstone, Stanley, and other African ex- 
plorers, with retinues of armed retainers and abundant 
resources, have encountered the greatest difficulties and 
numerous disasters in attempting to reach the interior of 
that " Dark Continent," the doctor modestly refrains from 
informing us. But the doctor expects that many will take 
his statement for the truth and purchase his nostrum, and 
no doubt many will do so, and he may become as rich as 
the proprietor of Warner's Safe Cures, and own islands in 
the Saginaw Bay, and boldly apply to Congress to confirm 
to him and his heirs a large tract of land adjacent thereto 
as an accretion, without being indignantly repulsed by that 
honorable body, for 

" Wealth makes the man, the want of it the fellow." 

And when Dr. J. P. M. becomes wealthy he can subsidize 
the public press and fill its columns with sensational ac- 
counts of marvellous cures of other doctors, clergymen, and 
other prominent citizens by the use of his compound. 

Another, more humble, advertises " A cure for the borer 
in trees," which he will send to any address for fifty cents 
(which is found to be a small parcel of hard soap worth 
two cents), with directions to place it in the crotch of 
a tree where the rains will dissolve it, and with the as- 
surance that it will permeate the wood and destroy the 
insect. 

Numbers of unscrupulous fellows visit the farming com- 
munities, professing to represent the great " Crawford, Henry 
& Williams County Seed Store" (C. H. Brassington, Secre- 
tary) or some other great seed store, and sell what they call 
the Bohemian Oats at one hundred dollars for ten bushels, 
under an agreement, to which the name and style of Brass- 
ington are attached, to sell twenty bushels of the product 
for the purchaser in the following year for two hundred 



A VARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. 89 

dollars, neither the company nor its secretary or agent ever 
being found to respond in damages for a breach of the 
contract. 

One, assuming the name of " The Tunquery Crayon 
Portrait Society," advertises to furnish from a photograph 
to be sent to the firm a crayon portrait free of charge, on 
condition that an order be given them for framing it." 

Another advertises a " Sure cure for deafness," which he 
will furnish on receipt of ten dollars, fifteen dollars more to 
be paid when the cure is effected; no reference being had to 
the cause of the deafness, and no inquiry ever being made as 
to whether a cure had been effected. 

Captain Smith, proposing to leave the salt water and retire 
upon a farm, calls upon a farmer and gets his price, is satis- 
fied, and proposes to pay fifty dollars down to bind the 
bargain and return in a week to consummate the purchase, 
exhibits a roll of one hundred-dollar bills, and the farmer 
changes one of them, giving the captain fifty dollars in 
honest money, and finds, too late, that his hundred-dollar 
bill is counterfeit. 

A stranger calls upon a farmer and enters into a contract 
to purchase his farm and pay four thousand dollars for it, 
which is all the farmer values it at. Another stranger soon 
puts in an appearance, wants to buy the farm, and offers six 
thousand dollars for the same place, if the contract of sale 
can be cancelled. The farmer seeks the man he contracted 
with and induces him to give up his contract upon the pay- 
ment of one thousand dollars. Strangers disappear and 
divide the plunder, and the farmer deplores his misplaced 
confidence. 

The lightning-rod man; the bogus tree peddler; the 
pretended son of an old friend; the advertiser of large 
profits on small investments ; of fascinating employments 
for ladies at their own homes ; of large estates in England 
belonging to heirs in this country, who are called upon to 

8* 



9 o 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



contribute for paying agents and attorneys for investigating 
their claims and securing the money or property inherited ; 
stock in joint-stock live-stock companies, or prospecting and 
improvement companies, with fabulous accounts of increase 
and accumulations of wealth; valuable packages to be sent 
on receipt of a few cents ; some liquid that will give skimmed 
milk a genuine creamy color ; a new systematic method of 
railroad stock speculation ; information by an old merchant 
as to stocks that will positively advance, yielding large 
profits to the investor ; writing to be done at home, appli- 
cants to send ten cents in postage-stamps ; information how 
to obtain immediate employment on receipt of a few stamps ; 
the freight dodge and the confidence games, are a few of 
the thousand humbugs that have been ventilated and ex- 
posed from month to month during a quarter of a century 
in the columns of the American Agriculturist, under the head 
of " Sundry Humbugs." 

If the pecuniary losses of the victims of these and other 
like frauds were all the injury growing out of them, that 
alone would be sufficient to stamp the perpetrators as ene- 
mies to humanity and fit subjects for the discipline of a 
prison; but a greater injury arises from the tendency of 
such wrongs to destroy confidence in the general integrity 
of mankind, and to provoke resentment and retaliatory acts 
on the part of those who suffer the wrong. 

Many who would not deliberately have entertained the 
thought of committing an unjust act, on being deceived and 
swindled by one who has abused their confidence, smarting 
under the sense of injury, will be prompted to punish the 
wrong-doer by resorting to means equally reprehensible, 
and thus themselves become wrong-doers. As a small 
spark may kindle a large conflagration, so a wrong done to a 
^ single individual may be the cause of innumerable other 
wrongs ; and this is a lesson which should be indelibly im- 
pressed upon the mind of every child by its parents and 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. 



91 



teachers, as soon as it is old enough to distinguish between 
good and evil conduct. 

The wrongs we have been treating of as proceeding from 
avarice and cupidity are such as are perpetrated against in- 
dividuals, and only affect the community indirectly. They 
tend to the corruption of the public morals and the increase 
of vice and crime, and the general disregard of truth and 
honesty, and infect the whole body politic with their baneful 
influence, until the moral sense of the great mass of society 
has been so obscured as to tolerate the most stupendous 
evils, which in a morally healthy condition of society might 
be at once and forever abolished. The great majority of 
our citizens who have the power to do this, if they would 
unitedly exert that power, and who are conscious of, and 
really deplore the existence of, such evils, are wanting in 
that moral courage and energy which are necessary to 
impel them to act according to their convictions. If any 
attempt to do so, they find a demoralized public opinion 
operating against their efforts, which are thus rendered 
futile for the time. There are too many who, though they 
see the right, are not deeply impressed with its importance, 
or are diverted from it by interests and associations that 
they are not disposed to surrender for the public good. 
Those whose pockets would be affected by a reform that 
would destroy their occupation constitute a strong and in- 
fluential body, who are associated for mutual protection and 
defence of what they claim as their rights, and politicians 
and legislators and aspirants to public office are not willing 
to offend them, or lose the weight of their influence at the 
election polls. The spirit of avarice is narrow and selfish. 
It stimulates the lower and represses the higher and nobler 
qualities of the soul, and belittles instead of enlarging and 
elevating manhood. It coils its slimy folds around the 
image of Deity, and infuses into it the poison that destroys 
all that was Godlike in man's nature. Its insidious influence 



+ 



9 2 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



enslaves not only men in the ranks of common life, corrupt- 
ing the courses of trade and commerce, but it subjugates 
and brings under its power men of large intellectual attain- 
ments, occupying high positions in the professions, in the 
A halls of legislation, and other public positions of trust and 
responsibility, and strikes at the integrity, if not the very 
existence, of government itself. 

During the first half-century after our ancestors had, by 
the most heroic and self-sacrificing efforts, achieved inde- 
pendence and established a republican form of government 
based upon the principle of equal rights and equal protec- 
tion to all, public opinion required that those who were to 
have any share in public affairs should be men of sufficient 
ability, and of the most undoubted integrity of character. 
Selfish ambition and the seeking of public office for private 
ends were frowned upon, and very few instances of abuse of 
the trust confided to them occurred among those who held 
public positions. When one was proposed for appointment 
to a place in the service of the government, the inquiry was, 
"Is he honest? Is he capable?" And unless this inquiry 
could be satisfactorily answered, he was not considered 
worthy of the place. Office-seeking was considered as 
despicable. Those who were deemed the fittest were called 
into the service, and the best and ablest men were those 
selected to exercise the functions of government. Great 
economy and severe simplicity characterized the govern- 
ment in all its relations, both foreign and domestic, and 
every species of extravagance in the public expenditures 
was discountenanced. The application of Emerson's idea 
of the sovereignty of ethics was held applicable to politics 
as well as to the common affairs of men, and if a man was 
not just and upright as a citizen he was not deemed a fit or 
safe man in any public position. Public office was deemed 
an honor, not because it made the individual more worthy, 
but because it was regarded as evidence of honorable char- 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. 93 

acter and superior attainments. But as our country has 
increased in population, and grown in wealth and power, 
there has come to be a very prevalent and increasing feeling 
that it has become politically corrupt, — that there is a deep- 
seated disease in political affairs which demands heroic 
remedies, and not a few of our most thoughtful citizens are 
disposed to take a pessimistic view of the future of our 
country, and to despair of any remedy ; and there are cer- 
tain dark facts apparent to all which may well awaken the 
most serious apprehensions as to what that future is to be. 
We have already alluded to some of the means which are 
habitually resorted to for the purpose of influencing votes 
at the elections. The enormous amounts of money placed 
under the control of the general committees chosen by the 
respective political parties to manage their affairs in all 
general elections are used not only to procure the printing 
and circulation of articles intended to mislead and deceive, 
and to compensate the most unscrupulous and reckless men 
for misrepresenting the motives, acts, and intentions of their 
respective opponents, but to subsidize those who minister to 
the depraved appetites of the lovers of strong drink, or more 
directly to bribe voters by gifts of money. 

Nominations of candidates for political offices do not 
proceed from the spontaneous wishes or preferences of the 
electors because of their fitness for the positions assigned 
to them. Personal ambition, cupidity, or the promotion of 
some measure or scheme of individual or class aggrandize- 
ment, or the protection of some nefarious traffic opposed to 
the general welfare of the people, are often, if not generally, 
the motives which control the action of those who are ac- 
tively engaged in politics. The caucus system of nomina- 
tions, as practised by the several political parties, is adapted 
to, and would seem to have been devised for, the purpose 
of putting the administration of public affairs into the hands 
of incompetent and unscrupulous men. No man can faith- 



94 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



fully and truly perform the duties of a public trust, unless 
he can feel that he is free to act in accordance with the 
public interest alone according to his best judgment, and 
that he is bound to do so. But how many of our legislators 
and other public functionaries elected by the people under- 
stand that they were nominated and elected to act solely for 
the public good? Public opinion, based upon apparently 
indubitable evidence, certainly favors the conclusion that 
there are comparatively few in such positions who so under- 
stand their duties and obligations, and so act " Private 
greed, petty personal ambitions, the selfish aims, passions, 
and conveniences of powerful political cliques, have more 
weight with many legislators than the public good. Hence 
the fatal facility with which bad measures get enacted and 
the extreme difficulty and tedious slowness with which good 
legislation is accomplished." When the sources of power 
become corrupted, its channels will be corrupt from the 
least to the greatest. When nominations are secured by 
bargaining and intrigue, and elections by bribing and de- 
ception, it is folly to expect devotion to the public interests 
from those who obtain power by such corrupt means. 
Through the machinery of the caucus, and bargaining, and 
the use of money in the elections, small, popular, " smart" 
men of wealth and personally ambitious men secure their 
nominations and election and pollute the halls of legislation. 
The result is that the public interests are postponed or lost 
sight of in the struggle for the attainment of personal and 
selfish ends. 

One of the most damning facts in our national history is 
the feeling, generally prevailing and freely expressed, that 
the law-makers, who should be above suspicion of corrup- 
tion, are mercenary and venal, and that the votes and influ- 
ence of many of them can be bought with money, and that 
in cases of private claims or local matters requiring legisla- 
tion in which individuals have an interest, however meri- 



AVARICE, CUPIDITY, AND PERSONAL AMBITION. g^ 

torious, favorable action cannot be secured without first 
purchasing the influence of members of the legislative body ; 
and that private claims, however baseless, and schemes of 
plunder having only the merest semblance of merit are 
recognized and provided for through the corrupting power 
of money. 

The United States Congress, the State Legislatures, and 
municipal bodies having legislative powers are all become 
subject to distrust and suspicion, and the investigation and 
public exposure of astounding crimes and frauds perpetrated 
in the corrupt and flagrant abuse of legislative power have 
become so frequent as scarcely to excite surprise in the 
public mind. 

We do not assume that the great body of American 
citizens are politically corrupt, nor that the majority of 
those who are intrusted with power are disposed to abuse 
it or prostitute it for selfish purposes ; but the great body 
of our citizens are too careless with regard to these danger- 
ous political symptoms as they appear in an active minority 
who control the action of the primary meetings and, through 
this action, the general politics of the country. 

The following from a New York newspaper of a late date, 
on the subject of "Money in Politics," discloses some start- 
ling facts : 

" Money in politics is becoming one of the evils that 
threaten the body politic. The condition of politics in New 
York City is one of the best arguments in support of a 
truth that is becoming more apparent every campaign. 
City Chamberlain W. M. Ivins, of New York, . . . delivered 
an address ... on the subject of political assessments. He 
began by stating that important offices of honor, profit, and 
trust are either put up at auction or raffled away. He 
argued that if such a state of affairs was allowed to continue 
it would end in the complete corruption of the city govern- 
ment. Mr. Ivins gave it as his opinion that from 1880 to 



9 6 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



1886 there was never less than $100,000 or $250,000 raised 
by Tammany and the County Democracy every campaign 
during those years. 'As far back as 1876/ he said, 'Tam- 
many Hall raised $165,000 for the campaign. In 1883, John 
Reilly was assessed $50,000 for the nomination as register. 
Judicial nominations were bought for as high as $30,000. 
The nomination for district attorney commanded $10,000 
or $15,000. The mayoralty assessment cost as high as 
$35,000.' According to Ivins, the election expenses in New 
York City in 1886, official and unofficial, reached the sum 
of $700,000. He thought $1,000,000 would not cover the 
amount expended in that city for the expenses of the Presi- 
dential election in 1884. He said that fully twenty out of 
eveiy hundred voters are under pay, official or unofficial, on 
election day. The members of the club looked surprised 
when Mr. Ivins said that the men who were connected with 
the Tweed ring, and the false counting of votes of those 
days, were now holding important offices in this city. He 
laid stress on the hiring of political workers at the polls, 
saying that it was only a species of bribery. Mr. Ivins 
claimed that if a man was as great as Caesar or Napoleon 
or as good as St. Paul, he could never, under the present 
management of our politics, be nominated for mayor unless 
he had $15,000 or $30,000 to put up for the expenses of 
his election. Mr. Ivins said that he had been told that 
candidates for the State Senate had to spend as high as 
$50,000 to be elected. In 1885 the cost of one senatorial 
fight amounted to $39,000. He knew that it had cost one 
Republican $6000 to be elected to the Assembly, where the 
salary is only $1800 a year. A Democrat who had been 
elected to the State Senate twice told him that his first 
fight cost him $8000 and his second contest $12,000. Mr. 
Ivins closed by saying that he favored a law for printing the 
ballots of candidates at the expense of the people and to 
limit the campaign expenditures of candidates." 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



97 



The corrupting influences of such practices are too obvious^ 
and their tendency too deplorable, to be contemplated with- 
out the most serious apprehensions and alarm for the future 
welfare of our country, and it will require great wisdom and 
consummate statesmanship on the part of legislators to 
counteract or prevent them. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR AS A CAUSE OF 

CRIME. 

It would perhaps be more strictly correct to designate the 
conflict which is now so prevalent, and which has been 
going on and intensifying during the last few years between 
employers and employes, the one investing capital in busi- 
ness enterp rises and the other performing the necessary 
labor for certain stipulated wages, as the conflict between 
capitalists and laborers. 

There is no necessary conflict between capital and labor, 
nor any necessary hostility of the laborer to the capitalist 
or of the capitalist to the laborer, for their interests are each 
dependent upon the other, and, if rightly understood, mutual, 
and equity and justice are the interests of both. Capital, 
which is produced by labor, would be valueless if it could 
not be converted into labor, and labor would find no em- 
ployment if capital did not supply it. The great mass of 
our citizens, and probably the happiest and best-conditioned, 
are those who are at the same time their own capitalists and 
employes. The owner of a small farm, or vegetable garden, 
or a shop for some mechanical trade or business which he 
carries on mainly or wholly by his own labor and skill, finds 
no antagonism between his capital and labor, but under- 
E <7 9 



o8 causes of crime. 

stands the relative value of both and the mutual depend- 
ence of each upon the other. In all those branches of 
business which are carried on with a comparatively small 
amount of capital, and in which the employer and employe 
work side by side in the field or the shop, each feels more 
interest in the other's welfare; social distinctions are not 
marked between them, and their relations are generally 
satisfactory and mutually beneficial. 

Those of us who can look back through an active life 
experience of seven decades and remember the condition 
of the people in the New England and Middle States, and 
their modes of living at that time, and who have observed 
the vast changes that have taken place through the progress 
of science, arts, economic inventions, and improvements 
during that period, may discern in these some of the causes 
of dissatisfaction on the part of the wage-workers which 
now so generally prevails. 

Seventy years ago there were very few men in this country 
whose estates were worth a million of dollars, very few cor- 
porations or other associations for manufacturing or other 
business enterprises which required the consolidation of 
large capital. There were no railroads, steamboats, nor 
steam-mills in existence, or perhaps thought of. No 
mowers, reapers, or threshers operated by horse-power, no 
iron or steel ploughs or cultivators had been invented. The 
Erie Canal had no existence except in the brain of its pro- 
jector, who was jeered as a visionary dreamer. The tele- 
graph, the telephone, photography, and the electric light are 
discoveries of a later period. 

The spinning-jenny, invented and improved by Har- 
greaves and Arkwright, and perfected by Crampton, was 
not in successful operation in this country until the begin- 
ning of the present century, and the mule-jenny and the 
power-loom had not yet displaced the domestic spinning- 
wheel and weaving-loom. 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



99 



Farming and all mechanical operations were slow and 
laborious, and the tools used in them were clumsy and 
unwieldy compared with those in modern use. All land 
transportation was performed by animal power, and the 
stage-coach was the common vehicle for public travel. The 
flax and the wool for clothing were raised and prepared by 
the farmer and spun and woven and made up into garments 
by the female members of his family. Life was toilsome, 
simple, and frugal, and general contentment and friendship 
prevailed. 

But few new discoveries or inventions had occurred 
during the preceding century to disturb or interfere with 
the settled course of affairs. The habits, customs, and 
opinions of ancestors were held in reverence, and what was 
good enough for them was considered good enough for 
their posterity. They had no Knights of Labor or other 
labor organizations exercising any general influence, nor 
ever dreamed of striking or boycotting as a remedy for ex- 
isting evils. Political parties existed under the names of 
Federals and Democrats, and political party feeling some- 
times waxed warm and disturbed the social harmony, of 
neighbors, but the people had confidence in the integrity of 
their legislators and other public functionaries, and the trust 
reposed in them was seldom betrayed. Syndicates, credit 
mobiliers, and other like combinations for the purpose of 
corrupting legislators and defrauding governments and 
peoples had not yet been formed in this country, and the 
absence of strong temptations made it comparatively easy 
for the public servants to act honestly in the discharge of 
their public duties. 

The Great West was then a howling wilderness and its 
inland seas a solitude. A large portion of it, now occupied 
with active, thriving populations, was supposed to be unin- 
habitable. Michigan at a later period was reported as a 
swamp, and its lands not worth surveying, while the vast 



I0 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

plains east of the Rocky Mountains, now known to be 
fertile and capable of being made productive, were described 
in the early school geographies and designated on the maps 
as a barren desert like that of Sahara in Africa. 

If, to one who has personally observed the inception, 
progress, and consummation of the discoveries, inventions, 
and vast enterprises and improvements which have character- 
ized the history of the last seventy years, their magnitude 
and the changes they have wrought appear astonishing, 
what language could express the amazement of one who, 
having been familiar with the old order of things, should be 
suddenly introduced into the new without the knowledge or 
experience of the intervening transitionary conditions and 
events from and through which the present has been 
evolved ? If he had been educated in the schools of the 
olden time, and were now introduced into the primary and 
high schools and colleges of the present day, he would find 
none of the old text-books nor of the old modes of instruc- 
tion. All would be strange and unfamiliar to him, and the 
grammar of his native language, as now taught, even the 
learned author of Murray's English Grammar would hardly 
be able to understand. Place him upon a well-conducted 
farm, where the modern improvements in farm implements 
are used, and show him the mowing and raking and thresh- 
ing and separating machines, propelled by horse-power, the 
steel plough, horse hoe, and cultivator, which have super- 
seded the hand scythe and rake, the flail and hand fan, the 
wooden plough and the hand hoe, and by the use of which 
two men are able to perform the labor of ten in the old 
ways, and with more efficiency and less exhaustion of 
strength, and he could hardly believe in their reality. Show 
him the great manufactories of cotton and woollen fabrics, 
propelled by steam- or water-power, and requiring millions 
of capital, whose machinery enables one man to perform 
the labor which would have required ten or perhaps twenty 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, IO i 

according to the old modes of manufacture ; introduce him 
into the great furnaces, rolling-mills, and manufactories of 
all kinds of iron and steel machinery, tools, and implements, 
from a knife to a ponderous locomotive railroad engine ; let 
him take a survey of the vast net-work of railroads, extend- 
ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and from the 
Gulf of Mexico to Oregon, and penetrating every part of 
the country where commerce and travel invite enterprise 
and promise a return for capital invested ; direct him to the 
telephone, and tell him to converse through it with parties a 
hundred miles away ; and finally, let him read in the daily 
newspapers the telegraphic reports from all parts of the 
world, giving accounts of all the important and thousands 
of unimportant occurrences of yesterday, and what sensa- 
tions would all these, and the thousand other changes and 
transformations which would attract his attention, be calcu- 
lated to produce ? Would not he then be impressed with 
the thought that he had been translated into a world of en- 
chantment, which was subject to be changed at will by the 
waving of the enchanter's wand? 

When persuaded that all is real and substantial, and that 
it is the old world with nothing lost that was worth saving, 
but advanced, progressed, and improved through the in- 
tellectual force of the human mind, freed from the domina- 
tion of ancient traditions, superstitions, and ignorance, and 
left free to work out its great inherent capabilities without 
fear of offending the majesty of heaven, or of being supposed 
to be in league with the powers of darkness, he would be 
forced to exclaim, " Surely the old things are passed away, 
and behold, all things have become new." 

While he was becoming familiarized with the new condi- 
tions thus wrought by the power of mind, through the aid 
of science, art, and the treasured knowledge of the ages, 
he observes that yet new inventions and discoveries are con- 
stantly occurring to supersede and displace those now in ex- 

9* 



IQ 2 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

istence, as they have displaced those that preceded them, and 
finds change, improvement, progress written over all the works 
of men's hands. And of all the wonderful products of hu- 
man skill, invention, and enterprise, he dare not lay his hand 
upon any and say, " This is perfect, and must therefore be 
enduring." Must he therefore conclude that there is noth- 
ing subject to his cognition that is stable, fixed, and immu- 
table, never failing or disappointing to those who earnestly 
seek after the good and the true ? Back of, underlying, and 
controlling all things is the law, which we recognize as the 
law of nature, because it inheres in all things, — the law of 
God, " without variableness or shadow of turning," a law 
perfect in its operation alike in the physical world and in 
the mental and moral constitution of man ; a law of bless- 
ing to those who conform to its requirements, and of de- 
struction to everything which resists its authority. In the 
domain of the physical none question its supremacy, or 
hope to escape the penalty imposed for its violation. In 
the domain of the moral and spiritual its operation is less 
clearly discerned, because its penalties are not so obvious to 
the senses, and some hope to escape the just consequences 
of its infraction by the imputation of their sins to a sinless 
Mediator, who is supposed to have paid the penalty in ad- 
vance, and imputing to them His righteousness, whereby 
they are to secure all the benefits of obedience. Others 
denounce the law itself as unjust, and can see no good or 
justice in a law under the operation of which the world is 
filled with misery and woe, and human hearts are wrung 
with anguish on account of acts and events over which they 
have no control, and which they have no power to avert. 

It is not our purpose to discuss matters of religious or 
irreligious belief or opinion any further than they are im- 
mediately connected with our present theme. But all ex- 
perience has shown that men's beliefs, as well in regard to 
moral and religious as to political and other subjects, have 






THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



03 



constantly influenced or controlled human action, and that 
men in a great degree measure and determine their duties 
and obligations in all their public and private, social and 
domestic relations according to their several beliefs. Hence 
it is an old proverb that " As a man thinketh, so is he." It 
is equally for the interest of all to accept and believe what 
is true and to reject what is false ; but what appears to one 
to be true to another is false, and where all are confessedly 
ignorant, it behooves us to be modest and charitable and 
candid with ourselves and others, and to refrain from dog- 
matism where demonstration is impossible. The contro- 
versy between some of the ablest and most learned scientists 
and philosophers as to whether things have a real objective 
existence as they appear to the senses, or whether they 
exist only as ideas in our consciousness, and without such 
consciousness have no existence, may teach those who 
claim no distinction as scientists or philosophers a useful 
lesson. The objectist says, " I see a mountain, a dwelling- 
house, a horse, or a man." The idealist replies, " These are 
mere phenomena, shadowy forms, deceptive and illusive." 
The common mind apprehends the real existence of objects 
corresponding to man's consciousness of them ; while the 
idealist, by a process of metaphysical reasoning and assump- 
tion, proves to his own satisfaction, and convinces others, 
that the old sophists were right in repudiating the evidence 
of the senses and proclaiming the non-existence of material 
objects. 

Religious opinions assume similar antagonisms. In 
reason, and according to the common apprehension of man- 
kind, justice requires that he who violates the law, and not 
another, shall suffer the consequences of his sin, and the 
idea that the innocent shall be deemed guilty, and the 
guilty innocent, would be too abhorrent to human reason to 
be accepted. But by a process of theological metaphysics, 
assumed to be above reason, and treating reason as its foe, 



io4 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



millions have been persuaded to accept the belief, and 
millions do profess to believe, that under the administration 
of a perfect law by an all-wise and all-powerful and good 
Creator, this doctrine of imputed sin and imputed righteous- 
ness is true, and that the consequences of rejecting it may 
extend to all eternity. 

That the opinions of our people in regard to morals and 
religion have had a very large influence in bringing about 
the changes we have referred to in their physical condition 
during the last six or seven decades there can be no doubt. 
Under a theocratic government the people could not be 
allowed the free exercise of their reasoning faculties in 
searching after truth, for all truth was supposed to be com- 
municated by a mystical revelation of the divine will, 
through the appointed and divinely-authorized agents of 
Deity, and whatever thought or discovery was not so re- 
vealed was held to be error, and the thinker or discoverer 
was liable to be put to death for heresy. 

" The powers that be are ordained of God," was proclaimed 
by the Prophet of Nazareth, and his disciples for eighteen 
hundred years have held his words to be the expression of 
absolute truth, and whenever they have had the power have 
visited the rejection of this doctrine with condign punish- 
ment. From the time of the Jewish hierarchy to the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century every civilized nation was 
practically, as some of them still are, under hierarchal do- 
minion or influence, and free thought was hedged about and 
restrained by religious dogmatism. As, however, the re- 
ligious world became divided up into many sects holding 
divers opinions, each assuming the right to determine its 
own religious belief, and no sect having the power to dictate 
the belief of the others, religious toleration came to be estab- 
lished ; and when freedom of thought in religious matters 
was once recognized and protected by the State, an impetus 
was given to free-thinking on all subjects which could not 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. i $ 

be suppressed, and its quickening influence upon character 
and intellect is apparent in the wonderful changes and vast 
progress in the means of making life enjoyable and in eleva- 
ting humanity, mentally, socially, and morally. Whether 
the means thus afforded us of reaching and sustaining a 
more elevated manhood shall be made available for that 
purpose must depend largely upon the wisdom of those 
who may have the direction of public affairs, but perhaps 
more largely upon the intelligence and appreciation of right 
and justice of the capitalists on the one hand and the 
laborers on the other. In the exercise of a broad and en- 
lightened philanthropy which recognizes the highest benefit 
to each in the universal happiness and prosperity of all rests 
our only hope of so adjusting the relations between employer 
and employe, or capitalist and laborer, that both shall have 
reason to be satisfied with what it produces. 

In looking over the history of the present century, and 
observing the changes we have referred to in every depart- 
ment of business and human enterprise, by means of new 
inventions and discoveries, we see an exemplification of 
that inexorable law which declares that in all the depart- 
ments of life and of nature the fittest shall survive and that 
which is unfit shall cease to exist. This is a law of sacrifice, 
but it is the law of progress ; a law of destruction, but of 
substitution of better things in the place of those destroyed. 
When the Erie Canal was constructed, in the early part of 
this century, it was strenuously opposed by those engaged 
in the carrying trade by wagon through the region traversed 
by it, as destructive to their business. And so it was ; but 
it cheapened transportation and benefited thousands for 
every one it injured. The spinning and weaving of cotton 
and woollen goods by machinery was as bitterly opposed 
by the spinners and weavers of that day, and it was not 
without great difficulty that the new machinery could be 
saved from destruction. Had it been perfected at its first 



I06 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

introduction as it now is, enabling one man to do the 
work which had required twenty, it would not have been 
allowed to exist. Its invention and use caused sacrifice to 
thousands and suffering to many, but it has reduced the 
expense of clothing material to a fraction of what it would 
have cost if manufactured by the former methods. Rail- 
roads and steam navigation have cheapened transportation 
and travel, and rendered it practicable to transport the 
products of the soil and the manufactory for long distances 
at small expense and with tenfold speed. Our railroads 
bring the cattle and the grains of the far West to the 
markets of the East ! They bring the fruits and vegetables 
of California and of Florida and the West India Islands, 
and fish from the seas, fresh as when gathered or caught, 
and distribute them to every town and hamlet throughout 
the country. Travel is made easy, rapid, and comfortable, 
without increasing its dangers, and thus time, often so 
precious, is saved, and fatigue and exposure are avoided. 
But these new modes of transportation and travel have 
superseded and destroyed the old methods and caused loss 
and disaster to those who were engaged in those pursuits ; 
and while they have opened new avenues of trade and 
commerce, and extended the fields of human industry and 
enterprise, they, with other great innovations upon previ- 
ously existing orders of things, have been attended by evils 
of great magnitude, which have intensified the conflict be- 
tween labor and capital, — a conflict which has assumed 
such an alarming aspect and such large proportions within 
the last few years as to create the deepest anxiety in the 
mind of every one who has the best interests of his country 
and its people at heart. 

It is apparent to every man of intelligence and observa- 
tion that while the means of production have been increased 
tenfold by the new and improved methods invented and 
brought into use during the present century, and the wealth 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



I07 



of the country has been proportionately increased, this in- 
creased wealth has not been distributed according to the 
requirements of natural justice and equity, so that all 
should receive a share of the benefits it was capable of 
conferring upon them, and so that few, if any, should be 
compelled to suffer for the want of means of comfortable 
subsistence; but has gone largely to the building up of 
great fortunes in the hands of the comparatively few, who 
have gathered where others have sown, and luxuriate upon 
what others have earned. 

The eminent statesmen who laid the foundations of our 
government had before them the example of the wealthy 
nations of Europe, in which the privileged few were the 
owners of the land and controlled its products, and the 
many labored for a mere subsistence, and thousands were 
compelled to suffer extreme poverty and destitution, and 
they attributed those unjust inequalities of condition to 
their false theories of government and political economy. 

In monarchial governments the sovereign power is in the 
hands of a single individual, who is assumed to exercise 
supreme authority by a divine right, and to be the source 
of all honor and authority in the State, and the fountain of 
justice. The Prophet of Nazareth enjoined upon his fol- 
lowers obedience to such authority, declaring to them that 
"the powers that be are ordained of God;" hence those 
Christians who oppose liberty and resistance to tyranny 
by the constituted authorities are entirely consistent with 
the letter, if not the spirit, of the teachings by which they 
profess to be guided. The great charter of British liberty, 
called the English Constitution, was a concession from the 
king to his subjects, and not a declaration of rights emanat- 
ing from or inherent in the people. Under that form of 
government the few whom the king favored were endowed 
Avith great authority and great wealth, while the many were 
born to be their servants. But ideas of liberty and political 



IQ 8 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

rights and justice had taken root and become diffused 
among all classes of people, especially among the sturdy 
denizens of this new world ; and when the people of the 
colonies, through their representatives, determined to sever 
their connection with Great Britain and form a new govern- 
ment for themselves, they were prepared to put forth to the 
world a declaration of principles wherein the people were 
declared to be the source of all political power. They de- 
clared that all men are created equal, and that they are en- 
dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; and 
that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; and that to secure these rights governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. The new government was based 
upon the idea that it was to be a government by the people, 
for the people, and that its blessings should be participated 
in alike by all. None were entitled to exclusive privileges, 
nor to any monopoly of trade, business, position, or peculiar 
advantages. Those intrusted with the exercise of authority 
under the constitution and the laws were to be the servants 
of the people, whose will they were to obey, and not their 
masters. 

The history of the ancient republics and empires which 
had risen to great power and opulence and then declined 
and fallen into decay through the corruptions, weakness, 
and effeminacy consequent upon the accumulation of great 
wealth and the concentration of power in the hands of the 
few, while the masses were kept in ignorance and a condi- 
tion of enforced servitude, was one of warning, indicating 
the dangers which ought to be avoided and provided 
against in establishing a new republic. 

Under monarchial and aristocratic governments the com- 
mon people had no voice and were not recognized as having 
any interest in governmental affairs, but were assumed to 
have been born to be governed and to serve their superiors, 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



IO9 



and in their ignorance of the powers and possibilities with 
which nature had endowed them, and a superstitious rever- 
ence for the knowledge and wisdom attributed to those who 
exercised authority over them, consisted the safety and sta- 
bility of the State. The essence and spirit of kingly govern- 
ment was expressed by Louis XIV. of France, when he said, 
" I am the state." Even now, where, as in England, but little 
except the name of monarchy remains, all governmental acts 
are done in the name of, and are supposed to emanate from, 
the queen, to whose name is affixed, as the source of her 
authority, the term " Dei Gratia Regina" (By the Grace of 
God, Queen). 

Assuming the converse of the proposition that one or a 
few have been divinely 'appointed and constituted the foun- 
tain of all honor and authority in the state, " the government 
of the United States," says Chancellor Kent, in his " Com- 
mentaries on American Law," " was erected by the free voice 
and joint will of the people of America, for their common 
defence and general welfare." All the State constitutions 
are framed and adopted by the free voice and joint will of 
the people of the respective States, and have for their ob- 
ject the health, peace, and prosperity of every person within 
their several jurisdictions. In order to maintain the stability 
and purity of governments based upon the suffrages of the 
people, it was necessary that the education, culture, and en- 
lightenment of the whole people, intellectually, morally, and 
physically, should be made an object of primary concern ; 
and hence it has been the policy, both of the State and 
United States governments, to make provision for the educa- 
tion of children and youth, and to encourage the acquisition 
of useful knowledge in every department of learning. Thus, 
in the ordinance for the government of the territory of the 
United States northwest of the Ohio River, among the 
articles which it was declared should be considered as 
articles of compact between the original States and the 



IIO CAUSES OF CRIME. 

people and States in said territory, and which should for- 
ever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, the 
Congress of the United States declared that " Religion, 
morality, and knowledge, being necessaiy to good govern- 
ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means 
of education shall forever be encouraged." Ordinance of 
1787, Article III. 

For the support of universities, colleges, and schools, 
Congress has, from time to time, appropriated lands of im- 
mense value ; and the State Legislatures have adopted 
systems of education, and made provision for their main- 
tenance, in order to qualify the people for the exercise of 
sovereignty and self-government. 

It was the design of those who represented the voice of 
the people in laying the foundations of the new government, 
to establish it upon principles so rational, so broad and com- 
prehensive, and so clearly just, that they should forever com- 
mend it to the approval and the affections of all, through all 
coming time ; and that, with such changes only as experience 
might prove to be necessary to secure more effectually the 
happiness of the people, it should be perpetual. Did they, 
in their earnest zeal for securing civil and religious liberty 
to all, fail to provide for securing that equality which they 
acknowledged to be the birthright of all men ? The declara- 
tion of independence asserted great general principles, not 
with the force and effect of a statute, but as an expression 
of the highest conception of the combined wisdom of the 
representatives of the people, of their rights, and the duty 
of the government to secure such rights. At the time this 
declaration was solemnly adopted by the Congress of the 
confederated colonies, slavery existed in all, or nearly all, 
of them, and the slave-trade was prosecuted with New 
England capital, and large fortunes were being made by the 
traffic in human flesh and blood, and chattel slavery con- 
tinued to exist under the protection of the government of 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, m 

the United States until within the last quarter of a century, 
and after a fierce and bloody conflict waged in its defence 
by the Southern against the Northern States of the Union, 
when it was abolished. The children of the slaves were 
born slaves, and had no recognized political or civil rights 
under the laws. But by force of circumstances not then 
foreseen, after a long period of oppression and injustice en- 
tirely opposed to the declared principles of our government, 
the colored race have come to be legally equal with the 
white race in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, and to be secured and protected by the govern- 
ment in the exercise of these inalienable rights. But while 
every male citizen above the age of twenty-one years — the 
most ignorant and depraved equally with the most intelli- 
gent and worthy — is allowed an equal voice in public affairs, 
an unjust and, we think, a very unwise discrimination is 
made against women, who are denied equality of political 
rights with men on the ground of sex alone. Upon the 
abolition of slavery of the colored race, and the recognition 
of their political rights without education or reference to 
character or other qualification for the exercise of such 
rights, the injustice and impolicy of refusing to recognize 
the same equal rights in women seems too plain to be 
seriously disputed. But it is only a question of time when 
this wrong will be righted, and that time cannot be far 
distant. There are some other palpable deviations from the 
principles upon which our republican States were declared 
to be founded, which are still allowed to pass without cor- 
rection, but which require to be, and eventually must be, 
corrected by appropriate legislation. 

The ordinance of 1787 was adopted by a Congress of 
representatives who well understood the spirit of the Dec- 
laration of Independence and of the popular will, and they 
declared that the fundamental principles of civil and religious 
liberty formed the basis whereon these republics, their laws 



II2 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

and constitutions, were erected, and that in the new States 
to be organized out of the territory of the United States 
northwest of the Ohio River, no person demeaning himself 
in a peaceable and orderly manner should ever be molested 
on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments. 
The Constitution of the United States, by an amendment 
proposed in 1789, declares that Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the 
free exercise thereof; and in article VI. of the original Con- 
stitution, adopted in 1787, it is declared that no religious 
test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or 
public trust under the United States. The constitution of 
Michigan prohibits the Legislature from passing any law to 
prevent any person from worshipping God according to the 
dictates of his own conscience, or to compel any person to 
attend, erect, or support any place of religious worship, or 
to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any 
minister of the gospel or teacher of religion ; and provides 
that no money shall be appropriated or drawn from the 
treasury for the benefit of any religious sect or society, 
theological or religious seminary ; and that it shall not 
diminish nor enlarge the civil or political rights, privileges, 
and capacities of any person on account of his opinion or 
belief concerning matters of religion. These provisions are 
followed by another, which is a natural and necessary se- 
quence of the former, which declares that no law shall ever 
be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech. 
Most of the State constitutions contain similar provisions. 
Yet the laws exempting church property from taxation, be- 
cause it is devoted to religious uses, remain upon the statute 
books and are enforced, and thus every property holder is 
indirectly taxed for the benefit of religious sects and societies. 
On this subject the warnings of some of our most eminent 
statesmen should not remain unheeded. President Garfield, 
in Congress, January 21, 1874, said: "The divorce between 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, ng 

church and state ought to be absolute. It ought to be so 
absolute that no church property anywhere, in any State or 
in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation, for if 
you exempt the property of any church organization, to 
that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community." 

President Grant, in his message in 1875, said: "I would 
call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil 
that, if permitted to continue, will probably lead to great 
trouble in our land before the close of the nineteenth 
century. It is the acquisition of vast amounts of untaxed 
church property. By 1900, without check, it is safe to say 
this property will reach a sum exceeding three billion dollars. 
So vast a sum, receiving all the protection and benefits of 
government, without bearing its proportion of the burdens 
and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acqui- 
escently by those who have to pay the taxes. In a growing 
country where real estate enhances so rapidly with time as 
in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth 
that may be acquired by corporations, religious or other- 
wise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation, and 
may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority 
and through blood. I would suggest the taxation of all 
property equally." 

The laws also invest the first day of the week, known as 
the Christian Sabbath, with a religious sanctity, which they 
require all persons to observe. All labor and business on 
that day are prohibited, except works of necessity and 
charity, and no one is allowed to be present at any dancing 
or public diversion, show or entertainment, however moral 
or instructive it may be, nor to take part in any sport, game, 
or play on that day, under a certain penalty for each offence. 
And it is also made an offence to be present on the evening 
of that day at any game, sport, play, or public diversion, or 
to resort to any public assembly, excepting meetings for 
religious worship, or moral instruction, or concerts of sacred 
h 10* 



ii 4 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



music. Exceptions are made in some of the States in favor 
of those who conscientiously believe that the seventh day 
of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and such 
persons are allowed to perform secular labor on Sunday, 
provided they abstain from secular business on Saturday. 
So, too, notwithstanding the provision which forbids the 
legislature passing any law to restrain or abridge the liberty 
of speech, yet laws punishing what are called blasphemy 
and profanity are still held to be in force, and are occasion- 
ally, though now very rarely, invoked for the purpose of 
preventing, the public expression of opinions which are 
obnoxious to some religious sects. The harmonizing of the 
laws relating to these subjects, and conforming them to the 
principles of civil and religious liberty, and the true spirit 
of rational freedom, will be effected through the mental and 
moral education and enlightenment of the people. Numer- 
ous modifications of the laws on these subjects have been 
made within the last few years, and other modifications will 
continue to be adopted until they are made to harmonize 
with the spirit of the constitution ; and our descendants, 
if not ourselves, will realize that although the government 
is purely secular, yet it is based upon the highest and no- 
blest principles of the universal religion of humanity, and 
interferes with no special belief or form of religious opinion 
or worship. 

So far as political economy has come within the scope 
of legislation in the American Republic, the policy has 
been to place as few restrictions upon internal trade and 
commerce, and the accumulation and transfer of property, 
as were consistent with the safety and good order of the 
community, and to encourage every kind of useful invention 
and enterprise for developing and utilizing the resources of 
the country, and increasing the national wealth and indi- 
vidual and corporate prosperity. 

Our people, as British colonists, had been subject to the 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, u^ 

code of rules known as the Common Law of England ; and 
the municipal laws of that country, excepting as modified 
by the Colonial Assemblies under authority conferred by 
the Crown, controlled private rights. This common law, 
which consists of a collection of principles to be found in 
the opinions of sages, or deduced from universal and im- 
memorial usage, and progressively receiving the sanction 
of courts, so far as it was applicable to our situation and 
government, has been expressly recognized and adopted by 
the constitutions of several of the States, and has been 
assumed by the courts of justice, or declared by statute, 
with the like modifications, as the law of the land in nearly 
every State of the Union. 

In the formation of a republican government, under which 
all were to be considered equal, and none could be recog- 
nized as entitled to or allowed exclusive privileges, and 
under which all monopolies were intended to be prevented, 
there could remain no class distinctions. Hence it was 
provided by the Constitution of 1787 that no title of no- 
bility should be granted by the United States, and that no 
person holding any office of profit or trust under them 
should, without the consent of Congress, accept of any 
present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, 
from any king, prince, or foreign state ; and it was further 
provided that no State should grant any title of nobility. 

The laws of primogeniture and the entailment of estates, 
being equally repugnant to the principles of free republican 
government, have been abolished. Many other changes and 
modifications of the laws as they existed when our Consti- 
tution was framed and adopted have been made, for the 
purpose of conforming them to the principles enunciated 
in the declaration of independence. These changes have 
been made progressively as their necessity became apparent, 
or as public opinion demanded, and many of them were of 
so radical a character as to occasion serious alarm to the 



H6 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

more conservative of our people, and to evoke the most 
strenuous opposition. Among these have been the exten- 
sion of the elective franchise ; the abolition of imprison- 
ment for debt ; the recognition of the equal rights of married 
women to control and dispose of their own property, inde- 
pendently of the husband ; the exemption of the homestead 
from forced sale, together with sufficient provisions and other 
personal property to protect the family from immediate want 
in case of financial misfortune or disaster ; and the distribu- 
tion of intestate estates to the children or next of kin, males 
and females alike. 

The legislation in favor of greater liberty and more per- 
fect equality of political and social rights than those previ- 
ously recognized has proceeded slowly but surely from the 
basic idea of a government of the people, by the people, and 
for the greatest benefit of the whole people. 

A century of unexampled national prosperity has elapsed 
since the government was organized. Our resources are un- 
limited, and our national wealth is beyond computation. Our 
people are the freest upon the earth, and claim to be among 
the most enlightened. They possess abundant means to 
satisfy all the rational needs of every soul within our borders, 
and to educate and provide for the physical comfort and 
moral and intellectual improvement of all. But notwith- 
standing all our wealth and enlightenment, and the abun- 
dance of our resources, there are to-day many thousands of 
our fellow-citizens living in a state of destitution and squalor, 
and who are feeling the " wants that pinch the poor" with- 
out the hope of adequate relief; and there are many thou- 
sands more who are dissatisfied with their condition and 
feel that they are deprived of their just share of the wealth 
which their labor, united with capital, has produced, and the 
struggle for subsistence by the great masses of our citizens, 
who are obliged to rely upon the products of their daily 
labor for support, is constantly becoming more intense, 






THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



117 



while the number of employes, in comparison with that of 
employers, has been constantly increasing, and their condi- 
tion becoming more and more unsatisfactory. 

It has been the policy of the government to protect and 
encourage manufactures, the invention and construction of 
every kind of useful and labor-saving machinery, the con- 
struction and operation of railroads and other means of 
transportation, and every other kind of business enterprises 
which were calculated to develop the resources and increase 
the wealth of the country. Home industries and produc- 
tions are protected by a tax upon importations from foreign 
countries, and a large portion of the public domain has been 
given to corporations to aid in the construction of railroads. 

These great enterprises have necessitated the concentra- 
tion of large amounts of capital, and the organization of 
capitalists into companies and corporate bodies, and these 
have been vested with special powers and privileges, upon 
the assumption that the public good required them. These 
artificial bodies, under such restrictions and regulations as 
the legislature has seen fit to impose or prescribe, now 
monopolize and control nearly the entire business of the 
country, and by means of their wealth and political influ- 
ence in a large degree control its legislation. 

They have become the principal employers of labor, and 
by combination they are enabled not only to prevent com- 
petition among themselves and control the prices of their 
own productions or services, but to determine the compen- 
sation to be paid for the labor and services which they 
require. 

Those who are employed as officers and agents or man- 
agers of such corporations are, in general, amply, and many 
of them munificently, compensated for their services and 
the skill and ability which they bring into the service of 
their employers. But laborers of inferior grade, who furnish 
much of the skill, and perform the work without which 



U8 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

railroads could not exist, nor manufactories, ships, or vessels 
be built or operated, complain that their just share of the 
wealth their toil produces is withheld from them, and hence 
discontent exists among them, and organized resistance to 
what they denounce as the organized tyranny of wealth. 
It has been computed that " fully ten thousand trades unions, 
farmers' alliances, Knights of Labor assemblies, and kindred 
organizations appear arrayed against employers, for purposes 
of change in the laws and conditions affecting the laboring 
classes, or in self-defence. All over the land strikes of work- 
men are of daily occurrence, and lock-outs are little less 
frequent. Mines are covered, factories closed, work-shops 
abandoned; those who could labor either refusing or not 
permitted to do so, while over one million of unemployed 
men and an equal number of destitute and helpless women 
make a standing army of witnesses against some terrible 
error in our social system, or some injustice perpetrated by 
legislation." 

In a country where perfect freedom of speech and of the 
press exist by the fundamental law, and the means of edu- 
cation are extended to all ; where knowledge is diffused 
with the speed of lightning to every nook and corner of the 
land, and all are legally free to choose their own occupation 
in life, and to aspire to any position in society or under the 
government, no sort of mental or physical slavery can con- 
tinue to exist, and all social and political injustice will event- 
ually be resented and opposed or avenged by the people. 
In such a country, and with such means of elevation and 
growth, the dignity of labor and the just rights of the 
laboring man must eventually find universal recognition and 
just appreciation. Slowly and through many centuries, and 
against the strongest prejudices and most powerful influences, 
has the idea of equality of rights in all men been advancing. 
The ruins of Egypt, Assyria, Carthagenia, and Rome, and 
those of other ancient peoples, attest that their rulers were 






THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, ng 

task-masters and the people slaves ; and the republics of 
the succeeding era, while they made vast contributions to 
human knowledge, did not arrive at a comprehension of 
this great truth, now declared to be self-evident, that all 
men are created equal and are entitled to equal rights. 
Plato and Aristotle, who were deemed to be wise above 
all the other philosophers of antiquity, taught that the 
occupations of artisans degrade those who engage in them ; 
that they were base mercenaries, excluded by their condi- 
tion from political rights ; and that tradesmen, accustomed 
to lie and deceive, should be suffered in a community only 
as a necessary evil. In Rome the masses were laborers, 
and all laborers were slaves ; and even Cicero, the most 
gentle and liberal statesman of his time, affirmed that all 
artisans were engaged in a degrading profession. The old 
civilizations began and ended without a thought of the 
dignity of labor or the just rights of the masses of the 
people either to participate in the affairs of government or 
to demand a share of the wealth which their labor pro- 
duced. To us who view their course by the clear light of 
history their doom appears to have been inevitable. The 
luxury, extravagance, effeminacy, and corruption of the 
wealthy and powerful on the one hand, and the ignorance, 
poverty, and degradation of the masses on the other, could 
not fail to result in their destruction. 

These facts of history suggest to us questions of the 
gravest and most momentous import, — namely, have we, as 
a people, arisen to a true comprehension of the dignity of 
humanity in all its conditions, employments, and occupa- 
tions; and have we the wisdom and virtue necessary to 
carry into practical effect the great fundamental principles 
of government, declared to be vital, and upon which alone 
the perpetuity of a free state can be maintained ? Have we 
made the great mistake of placing no restrictions or limita- 
tions upon the increase and accumulation of wealth by in- 



120 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



dividuals and private corporations, and of granting special 
privileges and encouragement and protection to capital by 
legislation, without affording adequate encouragement or 
protection to the workers who are equally worthy, but with- 
out capital ? If capital had not been organized under 
charters from the government, with powers, privileges, and 
immunities secured to the corporations which the non- 
capitalist does not and cannot possess, it could never have 
wielded the immense influence it now has, and the inequali- 
ties that now exist would have been impossible. 

It has been the policy of the national and State govern- 
ments to encourage every kind of enterprise that would be 
likely to increase the wealth and prosperity of the country 
and the products of our national industries. But great 
national wealth may be a great curse or a great blessing to 
a people. If it is controlled by the comparatively few, it 
becomes an engine of oppression ; its influence is corrupting, 
and its tendency is towards national disease and dissolution. 
If wealth is diffused so that all may share the benefits it is 
capable of producing, it may be a blessing to all, and its 
influence be everywhere felt as a power for the development 
of healthy, vigorous manhood and the elevation of the 
whole people into higher and nobler conditions. 

A small army of well-armed and disciplined men, organ- 
ized and controlled by a skilful commander, may subjugate 
and enslave a million of unarmed and undisciplined people, 
and this has been done a thousand times in the history 
of the world. So a few men, absorbing the wealth of a 
country, and organized for its protection, may practically 
enslave and hold in subjection to their will the millions of 
laborers who must live by their daily toil, or seek a sub- 
sistence at the hands of charity, or else starve. When 
Ahasuerus had, at the instigation of a vain and cruel min- 
ister, decreed the destruction of the unarmed and helpless 
Jews within his dominions at an appointed time by his 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. I2 i 

armed soldiers, and afterwards repented of the great crime, 
it was too late for him to revoke the decree he had made ; 
but he then warned the intended victims of their impending 
doom, and furnished them the weapons with which they 
were able to defend themselves, and we commend this an- 
cient king for this act of justice. If the policy of our 
government has been such as to build up and establish a 
force that is capable of subjugating the many to the power 
and control of the few, does not justice demand that these 
shall either be protected by the government, or armed with 
the power to protect themselves against such a force ? It 
is claimed by many earnest, intelligent thinkers that the 
plain duty of the government is either to disarm capital of 
the special powers and privileges it has conferred upon it, 
and withhold its special protection and encouragement to 
capital in the future, and thus leave a fair field for the battle 
of life to all, or, if it is too late to do this, that it should by 
a counter-policy invest the laboring man with powers and 
privileges equal to those conferred upon capitalists, by 
means of which he can protect himself. 

The most powerful monopolies that have grown up within 
the last half-century have been the railroad corporations. 
These have a nominal capital of upward of seven thousand 
millions of dollars in the United States, but the actual cost 
of all the roads and their equipments has probably not been 
much if any more than half that amount, the balance being 
what is known in Wall Street as " water," a part of which 
represents the avails of either stock or bonds, which have 
gone into' the pockets of the directors or stockholders, and 
a part being only nominal stock ; and this fictitious capital 
demands and receives its share of the earnings of the roads, 
which the workingman has to pay. 

These mammoth properties are conducted by their man- 
agers solely with the purpose of making them yield the 
largest possible profits to the corporators, and their financial 

F II 



I2 2 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

success is exhibited in the railroad reports of 1884, which 
show a net profit for that year of over three hundred 
millions of dollars. 

The great manufacturing corporations conduct their 
affairs upon the same principle, and the census returns of 
1880 show that one hundred thousand manufacturers, all 
of whom are incorporated, received returns on their capital 
of thirty-seven per cent. A combination of companies 
wielding thirty millions of capital controls the steel product 
of this country. Others control the oil, the coal, the iron, 
and other leading articles of consumption, and what they 
do not monopolize is covered by combinations of dealers, 
so that there is scarcely anything, from a steam-engine to a 
lucifer-match, the price of which is not fixed by a corpora- 
tion. 

Land monopoly, when permitted, has always been, and 
always will be, an injury to the workingman, and a means 
of enslaving the poor. There is probably no country at 
this time where this monopoly is more oppressive and dis- 
astrous to the people than in Ireland. The population of 
that island is a little over 5,100,000, and it contains about 
20,000,000 acres of land, of which one-half is owned by less 
than seven hundred and fifty proprietors, each holding up- 
ward of 50,000 acres. Three proprietors hold over 100,000 
acres each, fourteen over 50,000 each, and ninety over 20,- 
000 each. One hundred and ten landlords hold among 
them over 4,000,000 acres, or one-fifth of the soil of the 
whole country. The whole civilized world is familiar with 
the history of the Irish people since their union with Great 
Britain, and know of the hopeless poverty, misery, and deg- 
radation which has been brought upon them by their vicious 
system of land monopoly. 

Of the people of the British Islands, it is said that thirty 
thousand men have legal power to expel five-sixths of their 
population, and that the vast majority of the British people 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



123 



have no right to their native land, save to walk the streets 
and trudge the roads. The condition of the English laborers, 
too, is everywhere known. With all her wealth, England 
maintains over one million paupers on official charity. 

The history of Rome illustrates the disastrous effect of 
land monopoly. In the time of Cicero only two thousand 
citizens of Rome owned real estate, and with it they pos- 
sessed legions of slaves. While Tiberius Gracchus was a 
Tribune of the Roman people, he addressed to them this 
memorable language : "Men of Rome, you are called the 
lords of the world, yet have no right to a square foot of the 
soil. The wild beasts have their dens, but the soldiers of Italy 
have only air and water!' 

In this country, whatever danger there may be from land 
monopoly in the future, its effects have not been seriously 
felt in the past, and are not so perceptible as to create any 
special alarm in the present. Our public domains have been 
so broad, and such vast portions of our territory constantly 
open to purchase and settlement in large or small tracts, at 
a moderate price, or to homestead entry, that it has always 
been in the power of those who desired to become the 
owners of land and tillers of their own soil, to acquire and 
possess it. But is there no danger that, without any limita- 
tions or restrictions upon the purchase of government lands, 
whether by citizens or foreigners, large portions of them 
may be monopolized by wealthy individuals or associations, 
and eventually held under a system of landlordism similar 
to that which prevails in Ireland and England, with a 
tenantry equally in the power of the great land-owners ? 

The Kansas City Times recently published a list of the 
leading foreign corporations that own land in the United 
States, showing an aggregate of 20,740,000 acres, equal to 
more than one-half of England, and more than one-fourth 
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
Other foreign associations and wealthy individuals have be- 



124 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



come large real-estate owners in the Territories and new 
States, and many of our own citizens have acquired titles 
to hundreds of thousands of acres, either for purposes of 
speculation or occupancy. The. general government has 
the power to impose such restrictions upon the purchase 
and uses of its own lands as it shall deem necessary for the 
best interests of the people, and the State governments can, 
by wise legislation, counteract the tendency which exists to 
the accumulation of large estates in lands by individuals or 
associations. 

Power is always and everywhere liable to abuse, and 
whether it arise from the possession of wealth, or other 
fortuitous circumstances or conditions, its tendency, when 
not duly restrained or controlled, is to the aggrandizement 
of its possessor and the oppression of those who are sub- 
ject to its influence. 

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." 

Legislators have enacted laws for controlling, in many 
respects, the power which wealth gives to the capitalist, and 
to protect those of small means, or who are dependent upon 
the labor of their hands for support, against the grasping 
cupidity of the monopolist. They have limited the rate of 
interest upon the loan of money ; fixed the number of hours 
which shall constitute a day's work; abolished the right 
which the creditor formerly exercised to incarcerate his 
debtor in a prison ; exempted the homestead from a forced 
sale, together with the clothing, furniture, provisions, etc., 
necessary for immediate use by the debtor and his family, 
and sufficient tools, implements, and stock to enable him 
to carry on his business ; and in other respects provided 
for his protection, and securing to him the means of earn- 
ing a comfortable subsistence, educating his children, and 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. l2 ^ 

acquiring the knowledge which is indispensable to good 
citizenship. 

These legislative changes have occurred during the present 
century, and they indicate a corresponding change in the 
views, feelings, and sentiments of the entire people, and are 
the result of a prevailing and constantly growing conviction 
among the most intelligent and enlightened thinkers of 
the age, that they are promotive of the best interests of all, 
the wealthy as well as the poor, the strong as well as the 
weak and the simple. They are, so far as they extend, a 
practical recognition of the common interest and brother- 
hood of man, and the equal right of all to share the bless- 
ings of a higher and nobler civilization towards which we are 
progressing. 

But many evils still remain to be remedied. General in- 
telligence has advanced, and the knowledge by which ex- 
isting evils are discerned has increased more rapidly than 
the wisdom of the legislature or the people has been able 
to devise means for their cure ; and those upon whom they 
bear most heavily become restless and impatient. These 
are the wage-workers, who are obliged to depend upon the 
avails of their daily labor for subsistence, who have no ac- 
cumulated stores to draw upon in case of enforced idleness, 
sickness, or other misfortune ; with whom the struggle for 
life grows fiercer as the chances of profitable employment 
become more uncertain. 

They see improved machinery, which capital only can 
purchase and control, doing the work which they and their 
ancestors were accustomed to perform by muscular power, 
and performing it with such celerity that fewer and fewer 
human hands are needed to perform the work, and when 
displaced and compelled to seek other employment, they 
are again liable to be displaced by some new invention. 
Statistics gathered and carefully collated under the direction 
of the Commissioner of Labor at Washington, in 1886, show 

11* 



l 2 6 CAUSES OF CRIME. . 

the displacement of muscular labor in various branches of 
industry by the use of machinery to be as follows : 

In the manufacture of wall-paper, 99 in 100 are displaced ; 
in silk (weaving), 95 in 100; in paper-making, 94^2 in 100; 
in woollen manufactures, 94i 2 y in 100; in silk (winding), 
90 in 100; in hats (stiff), 88f in 100; in tobacco manu- 
factures, &7}4 in 100; in manufacture of glass jars, 83*4 
in 100; in manufacture of brooms, 80 in 100; in manufact- 
ure of boots and shoes, 80 in 100; in farm labor, 80 in 100; 
in manufacture of flour, 75 in 100; in cotton manufacture, 
66^3 in 100; in hats (medium), 66% in 100; in wooden- 
ware, 66% in 100; in manufacture of carriages, 65-f- in 
100; in manufacture of saws, 60 in 100; in manufacture of 
furniture, 50 in 100; in railroad supplies, 50 in 100; in 
rubber boots and shoes, 50 in 100; in manufacture of soap, 
50 in 100; in manufacture of fire-bricks, 40 in 100; in gen- 
eral silk manufacture, 40 in 100. 

A sewing-machine does the work of twelve women. A 
" Boston bootmaker" will enable a workman to make three 
hundred pairs of boots daily. Glen's California reaper will 
cut, thresh, winnow, and put in bags, the wheat of sixty 
acres in twenty-four hours. The Hercules ditcher, Michi- 
gan, removes seven hundred and fifty cubic yards, or seven 
hundred tons of clay per hour. (Story of Labor, p. 706.) 

These statements show that in the several industries 
named, 650 men, by the use of machinery, accomplish the 
work which it would require 2300 to perform by muscular 
labor, and that for every 650 thus employed, 1650 have been 
displaced. 

To illustrate the effect of steam- and water-power, and 
labor-saving machinery upon the industries of the country, 
the Commissioner of Labor, in his annual report of March, 
1886 (pp. 87, 89), makes the following statements : 

" The mechanical industries of the United States carried 
on by steam- and water-power, represent, in round numbers, 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. i2 y 

3,500,000 horse-power, each horse-power equalling the mus- 
cular labor of six men ; that is to say, if men were employed 
to furnish the power to carry on the industries of this country, 
it would require 21,000,000 men, and 21,000,000 represent 
a population, according to the ratio of the census of 1880, 
of 105,000,000. The industries are now carried on by 
4,000,000 persons, in round numbers, representing a popu- 
tion of 20,000,000 only. There are in the United States 
28,600 locomotives. To do the work of these locomotives 
upon the existing common roads of the country, and the 
equivalent of that which has been done upon the railroads 
the past year, would require, in round numbers, 54,000,000 
horses, and 13,500,000 men. The work is now done, so far 
as men are concerned, by 250,000, representing a population 
of 1,200,000, while the population required for the number 
of men necessary to do the work with horses would be 
67,500,000. To do the work, then, now accomplished by 
power and power-machinery in our mechanical industries 
and upon our railroads, would require men representing a 
population of 172,500,000 in addition to the present popula- 
tion of the country of 55,000,000, or a total population with 
hand-processes and with horse-power, of 227,500,000, which 
population would be obliged to subsist on present means. 
In an economic view the cost to the country would be 
enormous. The present cost of operating the railroads of 
the country with steam-power is, in round numbers, $502,- 
600,000 per annum ; but to carry on the same amount of 
work with men and horses would cost the country $11,308,- 
500,000." 

In view of these facts, and the influx of great numbers of 
laboring men from Europe who are competing with our 
laborers for employment, and of the aggregation and rapid 
accumulation of wealth by corporations and individuals, and 
the enforced idleness of large numbers who are willing to 
labor, by reason of the existing state of affairs, many of 



\ 



128 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

whom are in destitute conditions, notwithstanding our un- 
exampled national prosperity, it is not unnatural that a 
feeling of dissatisfaction and alarm, and more or less of 
resentment, should exist among laboring men ; nor that the 
unequal distribution of the joint products of capital and 
labor and skill should produce a sense of wrong and op- 
pression, and provoke retaliation. 

By a natural instinct all men are prompted to resist, and 
endeavor to avert evil to themselves. Self-defence has been 
denominated the first law of nature, and until men have 
become so cultivated and enlightened as to be elevated 
above the desire to seek revenge for wrongs inflicted, they 
will be disposed to render evil for evil to those they deem 
to be the cause of, or responsible for, the injuries they suffer. 
Hence the law of retaliation, though repudiated by all wise 
men and all enlightened nations in theory, is still acted 
upon, and this savage principle is so ingrained into the 
constitution of man, that it will probably be the last to be 
eradicated under a higher civilization, and a new system of 
education in which the culture of the moral faculties and 
perceptions shall be treated as of the highest importance. 

The vices, corruptions and oppressions, and overbearing 
arrogances of the wealthy and powerful in Europe, have 
produced the anarchists, nihilists and kindred associations, 
who are the resolute and determined enemies of social order 
and government, and who, but for lack of power, would 
destroy every existing organized government, and reduce 
society to a chaotic mass, to be reorganized, if at all, upon 
some idea of equality, in which there shall be neither rich 
nor poor, high nor low, nor any responsibility under fixed 
laws. These orders, by reason of their secret organizations 
and the desperate character of the principles they advocate, 
and the revengeful and destructive means to which they 
resort for accomplishing their purposes, have become a 
terror to the community against which they have proven 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. I2 n 

themselves capable of committing the most horrible crimes 
without remorse, and facing the penalty of death for such 
deeds without fear or any expression of regret. Some of 
the most desperate anarchists have been driven out of Eu- 
ropean governments, and transplanted to our own country, 
where they have shown themselves to be equally the enemies 
of a free republican government; and while claiming the 
protection of our laws which secure the right of all to 
freely express their thoughts and advocate their opinions, 
they abuse that right by denouncing all government and all 
law, and counselling the most atrocious acts of villany and 
crime. 

" It would not be easy to exaggerate," says Mr. J. W. 1 
Chadwick (Index of April 29, 1886), "the amount of irrita- 
tion and unrest that characterize the interests of labor at 
the present time. These elements confront us, turn which 
way we will : strikes east and west here in America, in 
Belgium worse and worse ; Ireland waiting in agonized sus- 
pense for the response of England to her cry for justice; a 
multitude of books and pamphlets, hundreds of articles, 
thousands of editorials directed to this question of questions ; 
men of enormous force and genius, like Lassalle and Marx, 
giving their splendid energies to the most daring specula- 
tions ; such brilliant theorists as George and Geonlund 
bringing fresh fuel to the dancing flames ; every variety of 
socialism, communism, and co-operation advocated with 
supreme self-confidence ; the nihilist and anarchist hopeless 
of any polity that is not built upon the levelled ruins of the 
present structure of industrial and social life. Where there 
is so much restlessness and fever there is surely something 
wrong. A million of men out of employment in the United 
States for the year 1885. A loss of wages equal to $300, 
000,000. The something wrong is not merely a few years 
of depression and collapse, succeeding to a few of generous 
expanse. Prosperity may come again after five years of 



130 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



depression, as it came in 1879 a ft er the much more gloomy- 
period from 1873, and with it prosperity may cause some 
temporary abatement of the stress of labor agitation. But 
it will not wholly cease, because the principal cause of it is 
a great deal deeper than the immediate depression or col- 
lapse. It is the immense and steadily increasing dispro- 
portion that exists between the condition of the rich and 
poor. It is not true, as frequently insisted, that the rich are 
growing richer and the poor are growing poorer all the 
time ; it is true that the rich are growing relatively richer 
and the poor are growing relatively poorer. Here is the 
dreadful fact that, corresponding to the enormous increase 
of the general wealth, there has been no corresponding in- 
crease of the wage-earner's wages. From 1850 to 1880, 
the net product of American manufactures increased four 
hundred per cent., the wages of labor forty per cent. That 
is to say, the advantage which the manufacturer has derived 
from the improvement of machinery and other methods of 
production has been ten times as great as that derived from 
this improvement to the wage-earners. The industrial 
statistics of every European government show a similar 
result, which is the efficient cause of all that is most funda- 
mental to the industrial agitation of to-day." 

For the purpose of counteracting this tendency and secu- 
ring to labor a more just distribution of the profits derived 
from capital and labor combined, numerous associations of 
laboring men have been formed. Craft guilds, originally in- 
stituted in Rome by the Emperor Numa, as related by 
Plutarch, that they might be more easily governed, made 
rapid progress under the republic, and became protecting 
bulwarks of the various trades, and kept a vigilant watch on 
the rights of the members. The guilds gradually extended 
over Europe, and attained to a high degree of prosperity. 
After their decadence as labor organizations, which com- 
menced in the fourteenth century, numerous voluntary com- 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. i^ Y 

binations were formed, now generally known as trades-unions. 
These were organized for the purposes of mutual aid, and 
promoting the interest of those of their respective crafts, 
and many such organizations have continued to exist, and 
are still existing, both in Europe and America. 

Their history has been one of struggle against the 
power of wealth and the advantages which capital affords 
its possessors to control not only the prices of labor, but 
also the price the laborer shall pay for the means of sub- 
sistence. In their numerous conflicts with their employers 
they have sometimes been successful in securing a recogni- 
tion of the justice of their claims, but more generally have 
been defeated with loss and suffering to themselves in their 
attempts to cause a compliance with their demands. 

These labor unions have been formed by those of the 
same craft or trade. Such are the Typographical Unions ; 
the Hat-makers' and Hat-finishers' Associations ; the Iron- 
moulders' Union; the Glass-blowers' League; the Grand 
International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; the 
Order of Railroad Conductors ; the International Cigar- 
makers' Union ; the Bricklayers' and Stone-masons' Inter- 
national Union of America; the Patrons of Husbandry; 
the Knights of St. Crispin ; and many others of similar 
character. 

In 1869 a labor organization was formed upon a new 
principle, known since 1871 as "The Knights of Labor," 
which it is said now numbers over one million in the United 
States, and three hundred thousand more in Canada. This 
is not a trades-union, nor an assemblage of trades-unions. 
It accepts the unskilled workman as well as the skilled 
artisan. The cardinal principle of their constitution is that 
of a union of all wage- workers, irrespective of race, color, 
or creed, and it is understood to have been the first organ- 
ization ever attempted based upon the broad principle of 
uniting all laborers and wage-workers in one order, with a 



132 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



common centre of power for its direction and government. 
It is a society for mutual defence and united attack, and is 
now the strongest combination ever formed for promoting 
the interests of wage-earners. 

By their constitution persons who either sell, or make a 
living, or any part of it, by the sale of, intoxicating drink, 
lawyers, bankers, professional gamblers, and stock-brokers 
are excluded from membership in the order. 

When any grievance requiring adjustment is reported to 
the proper officers of the assembly, they are required to 
take the matter into full consideration, and use every effort 
to avoid a conflict. If negotiation fails to secure a settle- 
ment of the difficulty, and arbitration is refused, and the 
grievance is deemed of such a character as to require a 
resort to coercive measures, the weapons used are strikes or 
boycotts, the latter, however, being generally discounte- 
nanced by those who have the general direction of the 
affairs of the order. 

Strikes have been the most common means resorted to 
by all kinds of labor organizations to compel the employers 
of wage-labor to recognize the rights claimed by the em- 
ployed, or to redress their grievances, when other means 
have failed to secure their adjustment. Strikes are not in 
themselves unlawful, and may be justifiable upon the same 
principle that war by one nation against another may under 
certain conditions be justified, — that is to say, when waged in 
self-defence. But as war for the purpose of conquest, 
national aggrandizement, or revenge is condemned by every 
principle of justice and humanity, so strikes are hostile pro- 
ceedings that can be approved only as a necessary means 
of self-defence. Any individual laborer, or any number of 
laborers combined, may refuse to serve any other individual 
or corporation, or to engage in any particular employment, 
if he or they cannot secure an adequate compensation for 
the service rendered, or if the terms and conditions of the 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



133 



employment are unreasonable or otherwise unjust, and any 
number of associations may combine to act together in 
concert, and to aid each other in securing and defending the 
just rights of their members in all lawful and proper ways. 
The strikes which have been organized by some of the 
strongest of the trades-unions, and by the Knights of Labor 
during the last decade, have been numerous, and some of 
them far-reaching in their effects, paralyzing or obstructing 
the business of large districts of country, and attended by 
immense pecuniary losses, both to the strikers and their 
former employers, and injuriously affecting the interests of 
millions of others whose occupations and means of subsist- 
ence depended upon the uninterrupted carrying on of the 
business suspended by the strike. Rioting and the wanton 
destruction of life and property, preventing those who 
would labor in their places from doing so by threats and 
violence, compelling other laborers to join them and quit 
their employment against their will through fear of violence, 
are acts of lawlessness and brutality which have frequently 
occurred, and been resorted to_as a means of making the 
strike successful,— means justified by no law, but condemned 
by every principle which ought to govern the motives and 
guide the actions of men. The sudden withdrawal of thou- 
sands of men from employment in a business upon the con- 
tinuance of which depends the commercial, manufacturing, 
and other business of hundreds of thousands of others, who 
are forced to depend upon its continuance for success as the 
means of support, by the mere fiat of an executive com- 
mittee or master-workman, is in itself an act of fearful im- 
port, and the exercise of a despotic power which should 
not be allowed to exist, even by the voluntary consent of 
those who are subject to it, unless its existence can be justi- 
fied by conditions that imperiously demand it. It is said 
that none of the outrages referred to are directed or sanc- 
tioned by the order, but are deprecated by the members 

12 



134 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



generally. And this is undoubtedly the fact. But these 
orders include amongst them men who are ever ready, when 
a pretext is afforded them, to engage in turbulent and 
disorderly conduct; and that they will do so under the 
excitement of a conflict with their employers, making that 
a pretext for such conduct, the history of strikes, both in 
this and some European countries, proves to be inevitable ; 
and knowing this fact, are not the orders to which they 
belong to be justly regarded as morally responsible for the 
crimes they commit ? 

The most important and fiercely-contested strikes have 
been those of railroad employes. That which occurred in 
1886 by the Knights of Labor against the Missouri Pacific 
and the Texas Pacific Railroad Companies and their con- 
necting roads in the southwest, known as the Gould system, 
commencing the 1st of March and continuing a little over 
two months, has been characterized as the most fierce fight 
of the century between organized capital and organized 
labor. It cost the Knights of Labor one million dollars in 
loss of wages, seriously curtailed the financial resources of 
the railroads, and caused much suffering and incalculable 
losses to trades-people in all branches of industry and busi- 
ness throughout the immense region of country traversed 
by, or dependent upon, this system of roads. The strikers 
in several places were turbulent and riotous to such a degree 
that it became necessary to call out the military forces of 
the States, and employ great numbers of police-officers for 
the protection of property, and especially to protect the 
lives of such men as were employed to fill the places vacated 
by the strikers. These men, like those who were engaged 
in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem under the direction of 
the prophet, were furnished with weapons for their defence 
in case of attack, and while earning their bread by the labor 
of their hands, were obliged to keep their weapons of defence 
constantly within their reach. Among the desperate acts of 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, I $$ 

the strikers was that of waylaying a freight-train near Fort 
Worth, firing upon the new men who were operating it and 
those who had been assigned to their protection, wounding 
four of the marshals, and two of them fatally, some of the 
strikers also being wounded in the skirmish that ensued. 
Another was that of two hundred strikers, on the /th of 
April, going the rounds of the freight-yards in East St. 
Louis, and ordering the men there employed to quit work 
and fall into line with themselves. On the 9th of April 
some of the men who had accepted service under the Louis- 
ville and Nashville Railroad, and had been supplied with 
arms, either with murderous intent or from sudden panic, 
fired into the crowds of people in East Louis, and killed 
seven men and one woman. Acts of violence and lawless- 
ness were of daily occurrence during the continuance of the 
strike. Engines were " killed," freight-trains ditched, and 
other property injured or destroyed. Aside from the wrongs 
committed against individuals and corporations in conse- 
quence of this strike, the effect of such a warfare, carried 
on for so long a time, with such asperity and bitterness of 
feeling, and attended by such circumstances as we have 
described, upon the public morals of the people can never 
be estimated. 

The authors of the " Story of Manual Labor," whose 
sympathies are strongly with the laboring men, after treating 
of the history of the Knights of Labor, and giving a brief 
account of this strike and the incidents connected with it, 
remark as follows : " The first serious check which the order 
received was in the great railroad strike of 1886. . . . Mistakes 
were made which will hardly be repeated, and as we have 
endeavored to show in other parts of this book, it is only 
by their mistakes that the workingmen of the world have 
been able to find out, painfully and with great losses, the 
right path to the position which labor, in a free country like 
America, ought to assume. Strikes will not win. Violence 



136 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



simply invites counter-violence. If it come to the test, 
capital would secure more dynamite than labor, and could 
apply it more successfully. The only road out of the 
wilderness is to be won by careful organization and peace- 
ful and constitutional remedies." 

The general characteristics of all the railroad strikes that 
have occurred in this country are the same, and the pre- 
texts for their institution in some instances appear to have 
been frivolous or trivial, in view of the grave consequences 
necessarily resulting from the measures adopted for redress. 
In the case of the great strike of 1886, the Texas and Pacific 
Railroad Company had discharged from their employment 
C. A. Hall, foreman of the wood-workers in their car-shops 
at Marshall, and after a struggle of eight and a half weeks 
to compel his reinstatement, by the whole force of the 
order, the strike was ended by an unconditional submission, 
without accomplishing the purpose for which it was osten- 
sibly instituted. The real purpose of the managers of the 
order seems to have been to make such a demonstration of 
their power as would compel the corporations involved to 
submit to such terms as they should dictate, which they 
believed themselves strong enough at that time to accom- 
plish. Had they succeeded in bringing these great cor- 
porations to their feet, they would have demonstrated the 
fact, which some of them then assumed and threatened to 
put into practical effect, that they had the power to stop 
every wheel in the United States. Every sound political 
economist, however strong his sympathies may have been 
in favor of the laboring men of the country, would equally 
deprecate any assumption of right on the part of organized 
labor to dictate to capitalists the manner and terms of con- 
ducting their business, and the assumption of any such 
right by the capitalist to dictate to labor the terms upon 
which it shall be employed. The exercise of any such 
power by either would destroy the other, and establish a 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, i^y 

tyranny that would result in anarchy. The solution of the 
question lies in the recognition of the supreme law which 
declares that the interests of capital and labor are mutual, 
and so blended that neither can prosper without the other, 
and neither should ever be allowed to subvert the rights of 
the other. 

Almost every manufacturing town and mining district in 
the country has, within the last few years, been the scene 
of strikes by labor organizations, and their extent and 
frequency have been such as to seriously obstruct and un- 
settle the course of business. Pursuant to a previous 
understanding among the trade associations, a demand was 
made on the 1st of May, 1886, that eight hours should be 
accepted by the employers as a day's work. The refusal 
of most of the employers of labor to accede to this demand 
was followed by strikes in all the principal cities of the 
Northern States, and extending to St. Louis in the south- 
west. New York and Chicago were among those which 
suffered the greatest losses in their business, and it was in 
these cities, especially the latter, where the anarchist element 
was made prominent in the conflict by demonstrations of 
ferocious malignity towards the friends and defenders of 
social order, which sent a thrill of horror through the 
civilized world. The tragic events resulting from that strike 
in Chicago, as the world now knows, culminated in the con- 
viction of seven leading anarchists of that city of murder 
of the first degree, and the sentencing of all of them to be 
hung, the seff-murder of one of them, and the judicial 
murder, under the laws of the State of Illinois, of four, and 
commutation of the sentence of two of them to imprison- 
ment for life. 

The question of pecuniary loss to employers and em- 
ployed, growing out of these strikes for fewer hours of 
labor, is one of minor importance compared with the wrongs 
and crimes of which they were the efficient cause ; but it 

12* 



!38 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

has been computed that these losses, including wages, loss 
in current business, and the stopping of new business, 
amounted to nearly or quite thirty millions of dollars. 

The design of every strike by a labor combination is to 
do injury, by crippling the business of those against whom 
it is instituted. The motive for doing such injury is to en- 
force a compliance with their demands by inspiring a fear 
of further injury in case of non-compliance. The principle 
upon which such acts and motives are sought to be justified, 
if generally approved and acted upon, would reverse the 
stream of progress and set back the wheels of civilization 
perhaps for centuries. That such a course should be per- 
sisted in as a remedy for the evils of which laboring men 
complain seems incredible, and we believe the good sense 
and cooler judgments of the great majority of them will 
soon check the rashness and impatience of the more im- 
pulsive and inconsiderate, until they shall discover and 
unitedly pursue the path that will lead them, by peaceful 
and lawful methods, to that elevated and secure position 
which the laborers in a free country ought to, and must 
eventually, occupy. 

Most, if not all, the most disastrous strikes that have 
occurred, might have been avoided by the exercise of a 
little more patience and moderation, and taking more ample 
time for discussion and negotiation, and the exhibition of a 
conciliatory spirit. It should not be forgotten that while 
a strike of the employes of a railroad, or system of roads, 
is directed primarily against the corporations, and is in- 
tended to injure them by interrupting their business, a 
vastly greater amount of injury is done to others who are 
in no wise responsible for the grievances complained of, and 
that among those who suffer most are brother laborers, 
thrown out of employment by the enforced suspension of 
the business in which they are employed. But above all, 
the demoralizing effect of large and powerful bodies of men 



THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR, i^g 

associated together and acting under the directions of a 
central directory of their own creation, under no sanction 
of law, to redress, by forcible and violent means, assumed 
wrongs for which the laws of the country afford a peaceful 
remedy where the act complained of is unlawful, or which 
if lawful is not to be regarded as a wrong until declared so 
by the legislature, can hardly be estimated. Such exhibi- 
tions of power, directed to such purposes, afford opportu- 
nities and encouragement to the most desperate and vicious 
to mingle in the strife for the purpose of gratifying their 
criminal propensities with better chances of escaping the 
consequences of their acts. Every such demonstration has 
in it an element of anarchism, which attracts to it the open 
and pronounced, as well as the secret enemies of social 
order, and of a government which protects the rights of 
property. 

Men are justly held to contemplate and intend the 
natural consequence of their acts, and such as usually flow 
from those of a similar character. The wilful killing of a 
human being with malice aforethought is murder, and those 
who conspire with such as commit the act to compass the 
death, are held to be equally guilty. How much less 
guilty are those who deliberately, without some overmaster- 
ing necessity, institute and carry into effect measures of 
retaliation which all previous experience has shown are 
likely to, and probably will, cause the commission of this 
highest crime known to the law (treason excepted), together 
with innumerable smaller crimes and offences ? 

The taking of the property of another, with intent to 
deprive the owner of his property, is theft, and subjects the 
offender to imprisonment in a county jail or State peniten- 
tiary, and in England, but a few years ago, was punish- 
able with death. How much less guilty, morally, are they 
who deliberately deprive hundreds of thousands of their 
fellow-citizens of millions of money or of property, by for- 



140 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



cibly obstructing the trade or business in which they are 
engaged ? 

The great strike of 1886 in the southwest interfered with 
or suspended the business of a population estimated at 
five millions, who were dependent upon the working of the 
Gould system of railroads. The strike of the engineers and 
firemen of the Burlington and Quincy system, embracing 
six thousand miles of railroad, now on foot, if long con- 
tinued, may be equally disastrous to the business of the 
country. A circular just issued by the chief of the 
Brotherhood of Engineers and grand master of the fire- 
men engaged in the strike contains the following announce- 
ment : " Five days have elapsed since the great strike was 
inaugurated upon the Burlington, and from end to end the 
system is paralyzed and unable to move."/ The strike on 
the Reading Railroad system in Pennsylvania by the 
Knights of Labor, which is still pending (March 3, 1888), is 
attended with similar effects, while the issue as between the 
strikers and employers is problematical, but the results of 
the conflict will certainly be vastly injurious, with no com- 
pensating benefits likely to follow. It is said with truth 
that laboring men have grievances of which they may justly 
complain; that wealth has been accumulated largely by 
speculation and fraud, and by withholding the just rewards 
of labor, and that its power has been used to oppress the 
poor. But all these facts do not justify or excuse any 
resort to violent or criminal means of redress. It is also 
true that many millions of wealth are freely given every 
year for the benefit of laborers and the improvement of 
their condition. 

When we come to treat of the prevention of crime in a 
subsequent article, we hope to be able to indicate a better 
way of adjusting the rights of labor, and preventing future 
conflict between labor and capital. It presents a question 
of momentous importance, and the best minds of the civil- 



OTHER CAUSES OF CRIME. 



141 



ized world are occupied in its consideration, and endeavor- 
ing to find a way of solving it which will be satisfactory and 
beneficial to all. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OTHER CAUSES OF CRIME. 

Among the many other causes of crime is the debasing 
influence of a demoralized newspaper press. A sound 
thinker and keen observer of events, their causes and 
effects, writes on the subject as follows : " There is no end 
of prating of the power of the press, and no one can truth- 
fully deny its incalculable influence; but that it approxi- 
mates even to the degree of greatest usefulness would be 
an unfounded claim. In its eagerness for news, in catering 
to an unrefined and vulgar taste, the press has become 
prostituted and debased ; and, with the facilities of telephone 
and telegraph, is a sewer into which is poured the effete- 
ness, rottenness, degradation, imbecility, villany, moral dis- 
ease, profligacy, and corruption of the whole world, in a 
seething mass of unutterable abomination. The great 
metropolitan journals, with world-wide facilities, take the 
lead in the gossip of villany and prurient rascality, and the 
smaller fry of town and village closely imitate, like hounds 
in a well-trained pack. Special correspondents are sent, re- 
gardless of distance or expense, to report murders, robberies, 
debaucheries, hangings, and numberless crimes. The taste 
of the public is not only catered to, but cultivated in this 
direction, and the evil intensifies with the morbid feeling it 
creates for moral and social carrion ; and when the actual 
fails in supply, the ready pen and debased fancy of the re- 
porter pour forth the reeking column. The ' mirror of the 



142 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



times' has no surface for the reflection of good deeds or 
kind acts. It is sensitive only to the reverse. Its face is 
red with crime, and foul with corruption. 

The literary taste of the people is degraded and vulgar- 
ized, instead of being improved and elevated. The glowing 
narratives of robberies, murders, prize-fights, assignations, 
elopements, and nameless deviltry, instead of preventing by 
example, stimulate to imitation and engender the thirst for 
crime. The leading news journals are too unclean to enter 
the family circle and be read by children. The Police 
Gazette excels them only by its illustrations." * 

The histories of Captain Kidd, Jack Cade, and other 
noted outlaws of all ages, their daring deeds and their 
cunning, adroitness, and success in securing the fruits of 
their crimes, and the stratagems by which they evaded 
arrest, or escaped from prison when incarcerated, especially 
when spiced with some romantic love affair or account of 
devoted friendship, inflame the minds of thousands of youth- 
ful readers, and inspire in them a yearning for wild adven- 
ture and reckless daring, leading to crime; and thus the 
nobler impulses and aspirations which, if properly cultivated 
and directed, would have made them good and true men, 
are perverted and drawn into the paths which lead to dis- 
grace and ignominy. 

The great mass of cheap sensational literature which gets 
into the hands of the young of both sexes, and fascinates 
the youthful mind, is mischievous in its tendency. It un- 
duly excites the imagination, inculcates false views of life, 
misleads the judgment, vitiates the taste, and unfits its 
votaries for the sober realities and duties of ordinary life. 
If it does not directly lead to the commission of crime, it 
stimulates hopes and ambitions that are never to be realized, 
and induces a mental condition that undermines or perverts 

* Hudson Tuttle, in Index of December 24, 1885. 



OTHER CAUSES OE CRIME. l ^ 

the moral sense, and renders the allurements of sin more 
enticing, while it weakens the power of the will to resist 
temptation. Works of fiction are not objectionable merely 
because the events they describe are not real. Many such 
inculcate great moral truths in an impressive and forcible 
manner, and may be read with profit. Allegory and par- 
able were the favorite modes among the ancient peoples of 
illustrating and enforcing great moral truths, and impressing 
them upon the mind, and many a fable contains a lesson of 
inestimable value. The parables uttered by the prophet of 
Nazareth will be read, remembered, and their meaning dis- 
cussed as long as man exists upon the earth. The quality 
of every work of fiction is determined by its character and 
the influence it is calculated to exert upon the mind and 
heart. 

There is another class of literature so vile and pernicious 
in its character that its importation, publication, or circula- 
tion is denounced as criminal, and made punishable by fine 
and imprisonment. Yet the large profits derived from its 
publication and sale stimulate the cupidity of unprincipled 
dealers, and it is secretly thrust into the hands of children 
and inexperienced youth who are not aware of its poisonous 
character, and by them eagerly devoured. This consists of 
obscene books, pamphlets, prints, and pictures, tending to 
the corruption of their morals by inciting prurient desires 
and inflaming the animal passions, causing their abnormal 
or premature development. Self-abuse, libertinism, and 
criminal assaults for the gratification of passion upon females 
of tender age by adult men are some of the natural results 
of this nefarious traffic. 

Evil example and association with the corrupt and vicious 
are pregnant sources of vice and crime. Their insidious 
effect is described by Pope, the English poet, in the follow- 
ing stanza, which it were well for every youth to commit to 
memory : 



1^4 CAUSES OF CRIME. 

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Vice, says the Rambler, begins in mistake and ends in 
ignominy. 

The " street Arabs" described in a preceding chapter, and 
who are too numerous in all our large cities, are always 
ready to impart to other idle rovers about the streets all 
they know of mischief and crime, and to initiate the un- 
sophisticated into the mysteries of the craft by which they 
manage to sustain a miserable existence without honest 
labor. Thousands of parents who have allowed their boys 
to live in idleness, or without proper supervision and con- 
trol, and to be upon the streets at night, confident that they 
were incapable of engaging in any wrong-doing, have been 
suddenly surprised and humiliated by the information that 
they have been led astray and been guilty of acts that 
called for judicial intervention. Not only the children of 
the poor, who are obliged to neglect them in order to earn 
bread for their families, are thus exposed to ruin, but many 
parents with sufficient means and opportunities to protect 
their children from such danger fail in the performance of 
that duty, and reap the bitter fruits of their folly when it is 
too late to retrieve their error, or avert the direful conse- 
quences of neglected parental duty. 

Many of our jails and other prisons are nurseries of 
crime. Wherever those who are detained awaiting exami- 
nation or trial are mixed up with professional burglars, 
thieves, and other hardened criminals, the prison becomes 
a school of crime, where those who have only been sus- 
pected of an offence, or under the influence of circum- 
stances of strong temptation have for the first time violated 
the law, are taught the vocabulary of crime and villany. 
No truth is more surely verified by the experience of man- 



OTHER CAUSES OF CRIME. 



145 



kind than that " Evil communications corrupt good man- 
ners." The duty of separating the different classes' of 
prisoners, and of isolating those who have not become 
addicted to crime, is generally acknowledged, but its im- 
portance has not been so generally appreciated, and hence 
the proper arrangements have not been provided for keep- 
ing the different classes separate from each other. 

On this subject Hon. Levi L. Barber, a member of the 
Michigan Board of Corrections and Charities in 1884, in a 
paper read at a convention of the county agents of the 
Board, says, " In jail a prisoner is either teaching, learning, 
or plotting mischief. If he chances to be an old offender, 
he loves to recount his dangers, escapes, and successes, tell 
stories of magnificent crimes perpetrated by himself or his 
acquaintances ; how they were accomplished, and the allure- 
ments connected with them in glowing colors. How many 
a young man, arrested as a tramp or for some petty misde- 
meanor, through such influence is lured on to a life of 
crime !" General Brinkerhoof, of the Ohio Board of Correc- 
tions and Charities, says, " In every jail of a dozen inmates 
there are at least two or three who have made crime a pro- 
fession, spent years in its practice, and are adepts in all its 
arts and appliances. To them nothing is more delightful 
than to communicate their knowledge to others less ex- 
perienced than themselves, and the leisure and opportunity 
for this congenial work in our ordinary jails they never fail 
to realize to the utmost." 

Judge Walker, then president of the Michigan State 
Board of Charities, made a report to the Board in which he 
says, " The prisoners have no work, no instruction, nothing 
to do but to amuse themselves as best they can. Here are 
to be found, in intimate association, the old offender and the 
wayward youth, the former relating his exploits, glorying in 
his crimes, and inspiring the latter with a desire for similar 
adventures. In the very nature of things imprisonment 
q k 13 



* 



146 



CAUSES OF CRIME. 



without labor, and the unrestrained association of different 
grades, must have the effect to increase rather than diminish 
the number of criminals. Any fair-minded man, on an ex- 
amination of our jails, must be satisfied that, as generally- 
conducted, they are simply training-schools to make adepts 
in crime." 

Our jails are for the confinement of the following classes 
of persons: 1. Persons arrested for crime and held for ex- 
amination ; 2. Prisoners awaiting trial ; 3. Convicts awaiting 
sentence, or removal to a State prison or reformatory ; 4. 
Prisoners convicted and sentenced to a term in jail ; 5. 
Prisoners bound over to keep the peace ; 6. Fraudulent 
debtors, and such as are subject to imprisonment upon ex- 
ecution in civil actions; 7. Witnesses in criminal prosecu- 
tions ; 8. Persons convicted of contempt of court ; 9. Persons 
who are insane, and awaiting removal to an asylum. 

The grinding slavery of fashion, — the envy, jealousy, 
hatred, desire of revenge, and all the other evil passions of 
men and women are familiar sources of crime which need 
no illustration here, for " every day's report of wrong and 
outrage" attests their power to destroy happiness and entail 
misery upon our race. 

Religious fanaticism in former ages was one of the most 
terrible sources of atrocity which the world has ever wit- 
nessed. It destroyed the noblest and best, and deprived the 
world of all that they would have accomplished for the ad- 
vancement of mankind in wisdom and knowledge. Let us 
pray that the history of religious intolerance and persecution 
may not be repeated in this or any future age. 



ARTICLE III. 

TREATMENT OP CRIME. 

" God gave to earth a gift ; a child, 
Weak, innocent, and undefiled, 
Opened its ignorant eyes and smiled. 

It lay so helpless, so forlorn, 
Earth took it coldly and in scorn, 
Cursing the day when it was born. 

She gave it first a tarnished name, 
For heritage a tainted fame, 
Then cradled it in want and shame. 
* * * * * * * 
God gave. to earth a gift; a child, 
Weak, innocent, and undefiled, 
Opened its ignorant eyes and smiled. 

And eaith received the gift and cried 
Her joy and triumph far and wide, 
Till echo answered to her pride. 

She blest the hour when first he came 
To take the crown of pride and fame, 
Wreathed through long ages for his name. 

O world, both gifts were pure and bright, 

Holy and sacred in God's sight ; 

God will judge them and thee aright." 

Adelaide Proctor. 



147 



I48 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



CHAPTER I. 

TREATMENT OF CRIME PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 

The progress of the human race towards civilization and 
enlightenment has been slow and very unequal. Thus, while 
some of their faculties have been developed and cultivated 
in the direction of a higher and nobler manhood, others 
have been neglected, and hence both the individual and 
society have presented incongruities of character which 
they were not at the time capable of understanding or ap- 
preciating, but which are revealed to them by a gradually 
dawning light as the ages roll on, and men are prepared for 
a new revelation, and capable of comprehending and apply- 
ing truths of which the older civilizations scarcely had any 
conception. 

This light is like the morning sun that first illumes the 
hill-tops and mountain peaks, and is reflected upon the ex- 
panse below, until its effulgence extends over plain and 
valley and casts a glimmer into the dark caves and recesses 
of the rock-ribbed mountains. 

So the great truths of religion and morality, of justice, 
charity, and brotherhood, are first perceived by a few only 
who have progressed to higher conditions of life and live in 
an atmosphere of moral and spiritual purity, which renders 
them receptive to the light by which great truths are dis- 
covered and their application to the welfare and happiness 
of mankind is discerned. 

As some become wise and great and good, while the 
masses remain in ignorance and mental and moral darkness, 
so some faculties of the individual are developed in a high 
degree, while others have remained in an unprogressed 
state ; and for the same reason it has occurred that as society 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. j^g 

has advanced and knowledge increased, and arts and sciences 
have progressed and been utilized for man's physical com- 
fort and enjoyment, the perception of his moral obligations 
and duties and the higher interests involved in the cultiva- 
tion of his moral faculties has been weak and confused, and 
circumscribed by selfishness and passion. 

What is understood as science deals with the material and 
physical only. It discovers no soul in man, detects no 
spirit, and predicts no future state of conscious individual 
existence for him. It discovers whatever can be perceived 
through the exercise of the physical senses, takes cognizance 
of and collates the facts thus discovered, and deduces the 
laws and properties of matter, while it leaves the ethical and 
spiritual nature untouched, and relegates them to the domain 
of conjecture or speculation. Liberal provision has been 
made for the cultivation of the intellect and the stimulation 
of mental growth and activity. Knowledge has increased, 
and the secrets of nature have been explored and her most 
subtle forces and hidden stores subjected to the uses of man. 
From the bowels of the earth coal has been drawn forth 
for fuel, and oil and gas from great hidden reservoirs, both 
for heat and light, and the waters on the face of the earth 
have been made to yield, at his bidding, an unlimited force 
to carry man's burdens and perform for him a thousand 
toilsome labors. The lightning has been tamed and taught 
not only to carry his messages to the remotest parts of the 
world and return appropriate answers with almost incon- 
ceivable speed, but to supply a brilliant light for streets and 
factories, stores and dwellings by night, and to do many 
other wonderful things. New treasures and sources of 
wealth are constantly being discovered and made\sub- 
servient to man's uses by the exercise of his intellectual 
powers. \ 

A few sages and students of moral philosophy have, from 
age to age, for thousands of years, perceived and taught the 

13* 



!$0 TREATMENT OE CRIME. 

common brotherhood of the race as members of one uni- 
versal family. Confucius and Mencius, Socrates and Plato, 
Cicero and Jesus, and a few others, have been able to rise 
so far above the common level of thought and perception 
around them, into the higher and purer atmosphere of 
wisdom and love and truth, as to discern the great princi- 
ples of righteousness, justice, and charity, by which alone 
true happiness can be attained. The maxims by which 
these great principles have been illustrated and enforced 
are among the most sublime utterances that ever fell from 
human lips, and are worthy to be recorded and revered as 
revelations of the Divine will and wisdom. When Con- 
fucius was asked whether any one sentence could express 
the conduct most fitting for one's whole life, he replied, 
" Do not unto others what you would not have others do to 
you." " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
also to them likewise," is the correlative of the same pre- 
cept as rendered by the Seer of Nazareth. Cicero, more 
than two thousand years ago, taught that men ought to 
seek the good of others, and that a man should do no 
wrong, even if his act were forever hidden from both gods 
and men. " Love your enemies, and do good, and ye shall 
be the children of the Highest, for he is kind unto the un- 
thankful and the evil." " Love your enemies, do good to 
them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray 
for them which despitefully use you." " Render not evil 
for evil." These are among the sublime instructions of the 
Great Teacher, whose professed followers are numbered by 
many millions, and claim to be the most enlightened peoples 
upon the face of the earth. 

These exalted principles are opposed to all greed, all 
selfishness, all hate, all retaliations for wrongs done, all 
vindictiveness or desire for revenge towards any, however 
vicious and degraded. On the contrary, they demand that, 
while we detest villany and crime, and hate all manner of 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



151 



iniquity and vice, we allow no feeling of resentment to 
exist in our hearts towards even the vilest of our fellow-men, 
but rather that we seek to benefit them by teaching them 
the way of salvation from sin, and how to obtain that 
satisfaction which can be found only in doing good and 
abstaining from evil. 

Shall we love thieves, robbers, murderers, and those re- 
morseless villains who have cast a blight worse than death 
upon the innocent victims of their lusts ? Shall we love 
those hideous monsters, gross and repulsive in feature and 
expression, reeking with filth and moral pollution from the 
slums and dens of vice ? 

It is not in man's nature, however exalted in goodness 
he may become, to entertain the same feeling of affection 
or friendship for such that he can freely give, nay, cannot 
help giving, to the pure and good, and especially to those 
congenial souls among his kindred and friends whose 
thoughts, feelings, and aspirations are a help and an inspira- 
tion to him in his upward progress, and whose characters 
and conduct command his admiration and approval. It is 
not impossible, nor contrary to man's better nature, that we 
should love our enemies and those that hate us and use us 
despitefully ; but we are not required to admire nor approve 
of their character or conduct. John (the lesser) was the be- 
loved disciple of Jesus. His soul was attuned to celestial 
harmony, and the gentle sweetness of his spirit was in 
unison with that of the Great Teacher whom he called 
master, — and all his tenderness and devotion were recipro- 
cated. Peter and James, Thomas and Judas, and others 
were chosen by Jesus to be his disciples and apostles of 
the gospel of peace and good will ; and Jesus loved them 
all, but not in the same degree. He loved all mankind, and 
sought to benefit the entire human race, but not with the 
same personal affection which his beloved disciple inspired. 
He regarded the poor, the unfortunate, the sin-sick, the 



i 5 2 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



oppressor, and the oppressed with a love which impelled 
him to seek the redemption of the vilest, and raise them 
from their low estate into higher and better conditions. 

It was the love of humanity which we denominate phi- 
lanthropy that prompted John Howard, of England, in the 
last century, to spend a fortune in benefactions, and sacrifice 
his health and life in visiting the prisons, hospitals, and 
lazarettos of Europe, and in the endeavor to alleviate the 
miseries their inmates were subjected to, and whose public 
services were summed up by Edmund Burke in the follow- 
ing eloquent language : " He has visited all Europe, not to 
survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of 
temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains 
of ancient grandeur ; not to form a scale of the curiosity of 
modern art ; not to collate medals or collect manuscripts ; 
but to dive into the depths of dungeons ; to plunge into the 
infections of hospitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow 
and pain ; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery ; to 
remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit 
the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of 
men in all countries." Howard's great soul was awakened 
to the miseries of those who were in prison by having him- 
self been made a prisoner of war. 

William Wilberforce, another English philanthropist and 
able statesman, actuated by the same love of humanity and 
high sense of justice and duty, after having first devoted his 
efforts to reform measures and secured a royal proclamation 
against vice and immorality, having his sympathies strongly 
interested in behalf of the colored race by his friend Clark- 
son, who had written a work on the slave-trade, commenced 
agitating the subject of its abolition in Parliament in 1787, 
and in 1807 secured the adoption of the measure by both 
Houses. Soon after this measure was adopted he com- 
menced the advocacy of negro emancipation, and continued 
his labors to that end until just before his death in 1833, 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



153 



when this measure was also adopted, and negro slavery- 
ceased to exist throughout the British dominions. Howard 
and Wilberforce devoted their lives and fortunes in practical 
and effective ways to the amelioration and improvement of 
the condition of the lowest and most degraded and ignorant 
of their species, and their names and characters are known 
and revered throughout the world. Not less worthy of 
honor and reverence are the names of Elizabeth Fry and 
Florence Nightingale, of England, the former having de- 
voted her life to improving the condition of those confined 
in jails, houses of correction, and lunatic asylums, with emi- 
nent success, and the latter to ministering to the sick and 
inaugurating a system for securing an improved administra- 
tion of hospital service. Many thousands of the sick and 
wounded in the hospitals at Bucharest during the Crimean 
war breathed the name of Florence Nightingale with emo- 
tions of deepest gratitude and affection. 

Not less honored and beloved is the name of Dorothea L. 
Dix, of Massachusetts, who spent the mature years of her 
life in the service of the wretched in poor-houses, asylums, 
and prisons. These and other eminent reformers of the last 
half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the 
nineteenth, having imbibed the spirit of the gospel as taught 
in the precepts above cited, became evangelists and mission- 
aries in the work of human improvement, and lived and 
labored at a period more propitious for the reception of the 
light of truth than had ever before existed since civilization 
began. This is the gospel of humanity that was preached 
to the poor more than eighteen hundred years ago in Galilee, 
which was then but little understood, and has been buried 
during the intervening centuries among the rubbish of 
theological dogmas, and amid the clashing of religious 
theories and speculations in regard to faith and doctrine, 
until good works came to be regarded by zealous contro- 
versialists as not only of no value, but as the most danger- 



.h 



154 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



ous upon which the hope of favor with God could be based. 
The meaning of the words of Jesus, when he said, " He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that be- 
lie veth not shall be damned," was taken as a declaration 
that faith alone, with baptism, was all that was required of 
his followers, disregarding the definition of pure and unde- 
filed religion as given by John, and the declaration of James 
that " Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." 

The condition of the prisons in Europe, and of those 
confined in them, was deplorable almost beyond the power 
of the imagination to conceive. Crime had been considered 
and treated as something which placed the perpetrator out- 
side of all human sympathy, depriving him of all rights, and 
rendering him deserving only of hatred and contumely, and 
of any suffering which the brutality of his keepers might 
prompt them to inflict upon him. Most of the prisons were 
filthy and loathsome beyond description. Men and women 
were incarcerated in them for punishment, pure and simple, 
without any thought of reformation or improvement, or any 
benefit to the prisoners. They were confined in dens like 
ferocious wild beasts, and kept and fed like brute animals, 
without labor or opportunity for healthful exercise; and 
every cruel device was resorted to for the purpose of crush- 
ing out any remaining spark of manhood or self-repect. 
The appeals of Howard and those whom he interested to 
the British Parliament in behalf of the victims of public 
vengeance and private malice resulted in securing legisla- 
tion intended to alleviate their sufferings and improve their 
condition. One of the measures adopted was an " Act for 
preserving the health of prisoners," and another was an act 
which provided for the introducing of labor into prisons, 
both of which were most beneficent in their character. 
From that time to the present a steady progress has been 
made in prison reform, more especially during the last half- 
century. 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



155 



But it requires a long period of time after a community 
has become convinced of the existence of great wrongs that 
have existed for ages before the appropriate remedies can 
be devised and put in practical and successful operation. 
Old established ways of thinking and acting, however un- 
reasonable, are not readily given up, and it is often a long 
time after the necessity for reform is everywhere admitted 
before new principles will be adopted and acted upon. In 
no department of human progress has this fact been more 
strikingly illustrated than in that which relates to the treat- 
ment of offenders against criminal laws. For more than a 
century the cruelty and injustice practised against persons 
charged with or convicted of crime have been the subject 
of discussion by the ablest jurists, and deprecated by all en- 
lightened philanthropists. Sir William Blackstone, in his 
Commentaries on the laws of England, published in 1765, 
called the attention of the people and government of that 
country to the melancholy fact that among the variety of 
acts which men were daily liable to commit, no less than 
one hundred and sixty had been declared by act of Parlia- 
ment to be felonies without benefit of clergy ; or, in other 
words, to be worthy of instant death ; and he remarks that 
" so dreadful a list, instead of diminishing, increases the 
number of offenders." It now seems almost incredible that, 
in a country so enlightened as England, in the latter part 
of the eighteenth century, it could have been a capital crime 
to break down the mound of a fish pound whereby any fish 
should escape ; or to cut down a cherry-tree in an orchard ; 
or to be seen for one month in the company of persons who 
call themselves, or are called, Egyptians ; or to steal a hand- 
kerchief above the value of twelve pence privately from the 
person. But the Parliament of England declared these acts 
to be felonies punishable with death, and although, as Black- 
stone observes, these outrageous penalties were seldom or 
never inflicted, for the reasons which he states, yet their 



156 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

existence upon the statute-books indicates the cruel and 
vindictive disposition manifested by the governing classes 
towards those who offended even in small and trivial matters. 
It is encouraging, however, to note the fact that this fearful 
list of capital offences in that country has been reduced by 
more recent legislation, so that only a few of the more 
heinous crimes are now punishable capitally. 

The modes of punishment for offences not capital were, 
many of them, grossly cruel and barbarous, such as burn- 
ing the cheek or hand, slitting the nose, cutting out or dis- 
abling the tongue, cutting off the hand or the ears, putting 
in the pillory or stocks, whipping upon the bare back, and 
other injuries and indignities to the person; and in capital 
cases, burning at the stake, disembowelling, drawing in 
quarters, etc. Referring to these modes of punishment, 
Mr. Blackstone says that, " disgusting as this category may 
seem, it will afford pleasure to an English reader, and do 
honor to English law, to compare it with that shocking ap- 
paratus of death and torment to be met with in the criminal 
codes of almost eveiy other nation in Europe." 

To those who, at this day, are better capable of under- 
standing and appreciating the principles and motives which 
should control human action, as enunciated in the precepts 
recited in a former part of this article, as given by the 
greatest, wisest, and best of the world's benefactors, it ap- 
pears surprising indeed that in the eighteenth century of 
the Christian era, in a country where the Christian religion 
was the recognized religion of the state, and declared to be 
a part of the common law of the realm, where it was a 
crime to use any contumelious or reproachful language of 
Christ, who is designated in the statute as " Our Saviour," 
and where all scoffing at the Holy Scripture, or exposing it 
to ridicule or contempt, was punishable by fine and imprison- 
ment or other infamous corporal punishnent, such laws 
could be allowed to exist, contrary to the spirit of all the 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



157 



teaching and the example of Jesus, and to the principles of 
human right and justice. 

The facts of this sad history of human weakness and 
depravity show how deeply rooted was the spirit of vindic- 
tiveness inherited from a savage ancestry, and how slow has 
been the growth and development of those gentler, nobler, 
and more rational principles of human love and kindness 
which are based upon a recognition of the Fatherhood of 
God and the universal brotherhood and unity of the human 
race. They show, too, how a nation or people may accept 
and professedly adopt a theory of right and justice, of 
obligation and duty, while, apparently unconscious of their 
inconsistency, their conduct and the motives which actuate 
them are in direct opposition to such theory. 

The history of crime and its treatment in other European 
countries is a dismal record of cruelty and suffering which 
it would be no pleasing task to review. The guillotines and 
the instruments of torture, the rack, the thumb-screw, and 
the slow consuming fires, and other devices for inflicting the 
most exquisite pain and mortal agony, were not all of pagan 
invention. 

Punishment by imprisonment in penal institutions was 
scarcely less terrible than death by the hand of the public 
executioner. Until the latter part of the last centuiy the 
condition of these institutions, and of the persons confined 
in them, seems to have attracted little or no public attention 
in Europe, and but for an incident which occurred in the 
history of John Howard, in 1773, the same conditions might 
have continued indefinitely. Having accepted the office of 
sheriff of Bedfordshire in that year, upon the opening of 
the assizes for that county, he visited in his official capacity 
the Bedford town gaol, the same in which John Bunyan 
was confined for twelve years, and where he wrote his " Pil- 
grim's Progress." The filthy state of the building and the 
wretched condition of the prisoners made a deep impres- 

14 



158 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



sion upon him. Here he found many innocent persons, who 
had been detained for months, and some for years, from 
their inability to pay their fees of jail delivery. These things 
shocked his sense of justice, and prompted him to enter 
upon the great work which has rendered his name immortal. 
Most fortunate was it for the world that he was a man of 
wealth, and of great ability and influence, as well as a friend 
of the poor, the wretched, and the sinful of his race. The 
accounts published by him of the condition of the prisoners 
of Europe presented an appalling picture of the inhumanity 
and terrible cruelty with which prisoners, whether innocent 
or guilty of crime, were treated in all the principal jails and 
penitentiaries. He had heard " the groans of the weak, 
sacrificed to the cruel ignorance and indolence of the power- 
ful," and witnessed " the barbarous torments, lavished and 
multiplied with useless severity, for crimes either not proven 
or in their nature impossible," and " the filth and horrors of 
the prisons," referred to by Beccaria in the introduction to 
his essay on crime, and his report aroused a feeling which 
has led to radical changes of the laws relating to crime on 
both sides of the Atlantic. 

During our colonial relations with Great Britain, and for 
a considerable period after that relation was severed, our 
prisons were in a no less deplorable condition than those of 
England, and some of them were execrable almost beyond 
description. Mr. McMaster, in his " History of the People 
of the United States," referring to the indignation and horror 
expressed by our ancestors at the brutal treatment of their 
captive countrymen in British prison-ships and hulks, says 
that " even then the land was dotted with prisons where 
deeds of cruelty were done, in comparison with which the 
foulest acts committed in those hulks sink into insignificance. 
For more than fifty years after the peace there was in Con- 
necticut an underground prison which surpassed in horrors 
the Black Hole of Calcutta. This den, known as the New- 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



159 



gate prison, was an old worked-out mine in the hills near 
Granby." He describes this den and the indignities prac- 
tised there in the following graphic language : " The only- 
entrance to it was by means of a ladder down a shaft which 
led to the caverns under ground. Here, in little pens of 
wood, from thirty to one hundred culprits were immured, 
their feet made fast to iron bars, and their necks chained to 
beams in the roof. The darkness was intense ; the caves 
reeked with filth ; vermin abounded ; water trickled from 
the roof and oozed from the sides of the caverns ; huge 
masses of earth were perpetually falling off. In the damp- 
ness and filth the clothing of the prisoners grew mouldy 
and rotted away, and their limbs became stiff with rheuma- 
tism." This writer adds : " The Newgate was perhaps the 
worst in the country, yet in every county were jails such as 
would now be thought unfit places for the habitation of the 
vilest and most loathsome of beasts. 

" At Northampton the cells were scarce four feet high, and 
filled with the noxious gases of the privy vaults through 
which they were supposed to be ventilated. Light came in 
through chinks in the wall. At the Worcester prison were 
a number of like cells, four feet high by eleven long, with- 
out a window or chimney, or even a hole in the wall. Not 
a ray of light ever penetrated them. In other jails in Mas- 
sachusetts the cells were so small that the prisoners were 
lodged in hammocks swung one over the other. In Phila- 
delphia the keeps were eighteen feet by twenty feet, and so 
crowded that at night each prisoner had a space of six feet 
by two to lie down in. Into such pits and dungeons all 
classes of offenders, of both sexes, were indiscriminately 
thrust. It is not surprising, therefore, that they became 
seminaries of every conceivable form of vice, and centres of 
the most disgusting diseases. Prostitutes plied their calling 
openly in the presence of men and women of decent station, 
and guilty of no crime but the inability to pay their debts. 



!6o treatment of crime. 

Men confined as witnesses were compelled to mingle with 
the forger besmeared with the filth of the pillory, and the 
fornicator streaming with blood from the whipping-post, 
while here and there among the throng were culprits whose 
ears had been cropped, or whose arms, fresh from the brand- 
ing iron, emitted the stench of scorched flesh. The entire 
system of punishment was such as cannot be contemplated 
without mingled feelings of pity and disgust. 

" Offences to which a more merciful generation has attached 
no higher penalty than imprisonment and fine stood upon 
the statute-books as capital crimes. Modes of punishment 
long since driven from the prisons with execrations, as 
worthy of an African kraal, were looked upon by society 
with profound indifference. The tread-mill was always 
going. The pillory and the stocks were never empty. The 
shears, the branding-iron, and the lash were never idle. In 
Philadelphia the wheelbarrow men still went about the 
streets in gangs, or appeared with huge clogs, and chains 
hung to their necks. In Delaware, which to this hour treats 
her citizens with the degrading scenes of the whipping-post, 
twenty crimes were punished with the loss of life. Bur- 
glary and rape, sodomy and witchcraft, were among them. 
In Massachusetts ten crimes were declared by the General 
Court to be punishable with death. There the man who, 
in a fit of anger, was heard cursing and swearing, or spread- 
ing evil reports of his neighbor, was first set in the stocks, 
and then carried off to the whipping-post and soundly 
flogged. ... In Rhode Island a perpetual mark of 
shame was, for many offences, judged to be the most fitting 
punishment. There a counterfeiter was punished with the 
loss of part of his ear, and distinguished from all other 
criminals by a large ' C ' deeply branded on his forehead. 
A wretch so hardened as to be recommitted was branded 
on the arms. Keepers knew no other mode of silencing 
the ravings of a madman than tying him up by the thumbs 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. x 6i 

and flogging him until he was too exhausted to utter a 
groan. 

" The miseries of the unfortunate creatures cooped up in 
the cells, even of the most humanely kept prisons, surpassed 
in horror anything ever recorded in fiction. No attendance 
was provided for the sick. No clothes were distributed to 
the naked. Such a thing as a bed was rarely seen, and this 
soon became so foul with vermin that the owner dispensed 
with it gladly. Many of the inmates of the prisons passed 
years without so much as washing themselves. Their hair 
grew long. Their bodies were covered with scabs and lice, 
and emitted a horrible stench. Their clothing rotted from 
their backs and exposed their bodies, tormented with all 
manner of skin diseases, and a yellow flesh cracking open 
with filth. As if such torments were not enough to bear, 
others were added to the half-maddened prisoners. No 
sooner did a new comer enter the door of a cell than a rush 
was made for him by the inmates, who stripped him of his 
clothing and let him stand stark naked until it was re- 
deemed by what, in the peculiar jargon of the place, was 
known as drink-money. 

" It sometimes happened that prisoners were in possession 
of a carefully preserved blanket. Then this ceremony, 
called ' garnishing,' was passed over for the yet more 
brutal one of blanketing. In spite of prayers and entrea- 
ties, the miserable stranger was bound and tossed until he 
was half dead, and ready to give his tormentors every super- 
fluous garment to sell for money. With the tolls thus ex- 
acted liquor was bought, a fiendish revel was had, and, when 
bad rum and tobacco had done their work, the few sober 
inmates of the cell witnessed such scenes as would be 
thought shocking in the dance-houses which cluster along 
the wharves of our great sea-board towns." 

Without the most indubitable evidence, who can believe 
it possible that, in a period so near to the present, extending 
/ 17* 



-'- 



1 62 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

over more than half a century after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was promulgated, and near to the middle of the 
present century, such horrors could exist unchallenged, and 
be regarded by the people with indifference ? The thought, 
too, that such horrors, and more terrible ones if it were 
possible to conceive them, had existed in all countries and 
under all governments throughout the civilized world, is too 
shocking for expression. The few voices that had been 
raised against the prevailing sentiments and practices in 
regard to crime and the treatment of criminals, seemed to 
make but little impression for the time upon governments 
or the peoples. ~J^~ 

In 1764, the MaVquis of Beccaria, an Italian economist, 
published " An Essay upon Crimes and Punishments," in 
which existing systems were criticised and reforms sug- 
gested. In this work the author touches upon some impor- 
tant problems in regard to the ethics of crime, lays down 
principles of evidence, and discriminates the respective 
spheres of judges and legislators, declares his opposition to 
capital punishment, assigning some cogent reasons therefor, 
and sums up his essay with the following theorem, — viz, 
that " an act of punishment may not be an act of violence 
of one or of many against a private member of society. 
It should be public, immediate, and necessary ; the least 
possible in a given case, proportioned to the crime, and de- 
termined by the laws." Of this book a writer in the " New 
American Cyclopaedia" says, " It invites notice as the first 
work of its kind in modern times." " Never did so small a 
book," says the " Biographie Universale," " produce so great 
an effect." 

The opinions broached in this book produced a marked 
impression upon the criminal jurisprudence of Europe. 
Reforms of greater or less scope followed its publication in 
Russia, Austria, Tuscany, and Denmark. 

The Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone upon the 






TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. ^ 

laws of England, though written mainly for a different pur- 
pose, contain hints and suggestions of reform in the criminal 
code which had their effect in producing important modifica- 
tions of the laws relating to crimes and punishments. The 
works of these eminent men, being followed a few years 
later by the publication of Howard's report on the condition 
of the prisons of Europe, a profound sensation was produced 
upon the public mind, and many of the more serious abuses 
in prison management were remedied. 

The attention of governments was first directed to the 
graduation of the punishment due to crimes according to 
the degree of turpitude evinced in their perpetration, and 
then to the rights of persons accused of crime to have a 
fair and impartial trial and a full opportunity for defence ; 
next, to abolishing needless cruelties in executing the judg- 
ments of courts upon the persons of culprits ; and last of 
all to the condition of the prisons and their inmates. Mr. 
McMaster, in the chapter of his history relating to the con- 
dition of the American people in 1784, from which we have 
quoted a description of the American prisons of that period, 
remarks that " To a generation which has beheld great re- 
form in the statutes of criminal law, and in the discipline of 
prisons and jails ; to a generation that knows but two crimes 
worthy of death, that against the life of the individual and 
that against the life of the State ; which has expended fabu- 
lous sums in the erection of reformatories, asylums, and 
penitentiaries, houses of correction, houses of refuge, and 
houses of detention all over the land ; which has furnished 
every State prison with a library, with a hospital, and with 
schools, the brutal scenes on which our ancestors looked 
with indifference seem scarcely a reality." Our pious an- 
cestors in the New England States were too much occupied 
in prosecuting witches and heretics, and separating the 
goats from the sheep, to visit those confined in the jails and 
prisons and seeking to alleviate their sufferings, or minister 



164 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



to their necessities. They chose rather to leave them to be 
devoured by the scornful wrath and righteous indignation 
of God and man, as deserving of all the miseries to which 
they were subjected in this life, and intenser miseries there- 
after without end. Nor, until within the last half-century, 
does the idea of reforming criminals in any other way than 
by the infliction of bodily and mental suffering, and by ap- 
pealing to the fears and apprehensions of men, appear to 
have been conceived of, even by the most prominent re- 
formers. Thus, Blackstone defines punishments as evils, or 
inconveniences consequent upon crimes and misdemeanors. 
As to the end or final cause of punishment he says : 

" This is not by way of atonement or expiation for the 
crime committed, for that must be left to the just determi- 
nation of the Supreme Being, but as a precaution against 
future offences of the same kind. This," he says, " is 
effected in three ways : either by the amendment of the 
offender, for which purpose all corporal punishments, fines, 
and temporary exile are inflicted" (and corporal punish- 
ments include whipping, putting in the stocks or the pillory, 
cropping the ears, slitting the nose, and branding with hot 
irons), " or by deterring others by the dread of his example 
from offending in a like way, which gives rise to all igno- 
minious punishments, and to such executions of judgments 
as are open and public ; or, lastly, depriving the party of 
the power to do future mischief, which is effected either by 
putting him to death or condemning him to perpetual con- 
finement, slavery, or exile." 

Beccaria says, " The end of punishment is no other than 
to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, 
and to prevent others from committing the like offence. 
Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting 
them, ought to be chosen as will make the strongest and 
most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the 
least torment to the criminal." 



TREATMENT PRIOR TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



165 



Both Blackstone and Beccaria emphasize the idea that 
punishment should be inflicted in such a manner that it will 
operate as an example to deter others from the commission 
of similar offences, by the impression of terror which it is 
calculated to make upon the mind, and both agree that 
torment for that purpose may properly be inflicted, though 
the latter says it should be done " with the least torment to 
the body of the criminal." Both these authors at the same 
time refer to historical facts which show that all public ex- 
hibitions of cruelty, or the infliction of torment by way of 
punishment for crime, instead of deterring others have had 
a contrary effect, and tended to increase the number of 
offences of the same kind ; and both of them refer to this 
fact as an argument against the infliction of the penalty of 
death. Had they lived and written at a later period in the 
progress of ethical culture and philosophical thought, they 
would have discovered and promulgated the deeper and 
profounder truth, that no torment or pain inflicted upon an 
individual which is not calculated and intended to benefit 
the individual upon whom it is inflicted can ever, by any 
possibility, benefit the public or any other individual. Any- 
thing beyond this by way of punishment provokes a feeling 
of resentment, or tends to blunt the natural susceptibilities 
of men to human sympathy and pity for others' woes, and 
works evil instead of benefit to the community. The highest 
and most effectual example to others, in the treatment of 
crime under human laws, is that which is directed, first, to 
the reformation of the offender ; and, if that is found to be 
impracticable, then by perpetual restraint and supervision, 
under such conditions as will secure the health of the 
offender, and render him useful by labor performed for the 
indemnity of the State. Such treatment is tinged with no 
cruelty, no vindictiveness, and no injustice. The preamble 
to what has been characterized as " the most admirable and 
excellent statute ever passed by the English legislature" 



!66 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

(that of I Edw. VI., c. 12) contains the following beautiful 
and eloquent language : " Nothing is more godly, more 
sure, more to be wished and desired betwixt a prince, the 
supreme head and ruler, and the subject whose governor 
and head he is, than on the prince's part great clemency 
and indulgency, and rather too much forgiveness and re- 
mission of his royal power and just punishment, than exact 
severity and justice to be showed; and on the subjects' be- 
half that they should obey rather for love, and for the 
necessity and love of a king and prince, than for the fear of 
his straight and severe laws." This statute, therefore, re- 
pealed every act which had created any treason since the 
25 Edw. III., st. 5, c. 2, and all and every act of Parlia- 
ment concerning doctrine or matters of religion ; every 
felony created by the legislature during the preceding long 
and cruel reign of Henry VIII., and other obnoxious 
statutes. The preamble to the statute 1 Mar. st. 1., c. 1, also 
recites that " the state of every King consists more in the 
love of the subject than in the dread of laws made with 
rigorous pains, and that laws made for the preservation of 
the commonwealth without great penalties are more often 
obeyed and kept than laws made with extreme punish- 
ments." Happy would it have been for the nations if these 
great principles could have been recognized and acted upon 
by their legislatures in the enactment of all laws relating to 
crime. Appeals to the fears of men may, in some instances, 
deter them temporarily from committing crime; but they 
are degrading and brutalizing in tibcir_effects, and, as all ex- 
perience has proven, lay the foundation of more numerous 
crimes in the future. 

The enunciation of the great truths set forth in such 
strains of simple eloquence as we have recited above from 
the preambles of memorable English statutes were not ac- 
cepted and applied according to the spirit and true import 
of the language in which they were expressed, and many 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



167 



needlessly cruel and inhuman punishments have been and 
still are inflicted under the laws of all civilized nations. 
They were not, however, barren of good results. The most 
flagrantly unjust laws were abolished or amended, and the 
most cruel modes of inflicting punishment upon criminals 
were abandoned, and during this nineteenth century they 
have been better understood, and the fears which our ances- 
tors of 1784 and still later entertained, that a relaxation of 
the rigors of the law would render life and property less 
safe, have been proven by experience to have been ground- 
less. The reforms in the criminal laws, and still greater 
reforms in the management and discipline of penal institu- 
tions, especially in England and in this country, within the 
last sixty years, have been truly wonderful, and most grati- 
fying to the hearts of philanthropists. But there are still 
many and great reforms yet to be accomplished, and errors 
in principle and administration to be eliminated from our 
criminal codes, before the demands of justice to the evil, 
the poor, and the miserable of our race shall be satisfied. 
These will appear more clearly in a succeeding chapter, in 
which the principles that, in our opinion, should govern 
all action relative to crime will be discussed. 



CHAPTER II. 

TREATMENT OF CRIME AND CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE 
PRESENT TIME. 

From the extract which we made in the last chapter from 
McMaster's history of the American people, in regard to 
the present condition of our prisons, it is not to be inferred 
that they are all in a satisfactory condition, nor that the 
treatment of prisoners sentenced to our penitentiaries is in 



x 68 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

all respects humane and just. Each of the great family of 
States comprising the Union has its own code of criminal 
laws, and its own penal or reformatory institutions and 
modes of treating or disposing of its prisoners, and these 
are in some respects widely different. There is no central 
power for the establishment of a general system of prisons^ 
and prison management as in England, which may in some 
degree account for the fact that in that country they are 
nearly half a century ahead of us in prison reform ; and 
that in none of the United States has the condition and 
management of prisons been equal to that of the English 
penal institutions during that period, and especially since 
1787, when all local prisons were placed under government; 
control. 

Rev. John Horsley, a very intelligent and well-informed 
writer, who has had a long experience as a prison official, 
and has taken a deep interest in the treatment and discipline 
of prisoners in his own and other countries, in his book 
entitled " Jottings from Jails," after giving some account of 
the condition of the English prisons and their management, 
and the treatment of prisoners confined in them, discusses 
briefly the subject of American prison reform. On this 
subject he says, " A feeling not merely of surprise, but of 
consternation, will be produced in any English reader of the 
Annual Report of the Prison Association of New York. 
British patriotism is said sometimes to take the form of a 
depreciation of English ways and institutions, and our re- 
spect for the progressiveness of our transatlantic cousins 
may sometimes lead us to take excellence for granted where 
none of the hampering traditions and vested interests of 
feudalism exist. A wholesome corrective would be supplied 
by an investigation into the state of their prisons, which we 
do not hesitate to say would reveal a state of things unknown 
here, unless we unearthed the records of some sixty years 
ago." This writer does not give his English readers the 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



169 



date of the " annual report" he refers to, which many of 
them would probably like to know. However that may be, 
it is of little importance to us. But he gives his readers 
some statements embraced in that report which demand our 
most serious attention, as indicating a state of things that 
still exists to a degree which calls for energetic and con- 
tinued efforts for reform. Recognizing that the Prison As- 
sociation of New York is, " on paper, perfect in its plan," and 
after stating that it combines the objects of the Howard So- 
ciety of England, and various organizations for aiding dis- 
charged prisoners, — having standing committees on finance, 
on detention, on prison discipline, and on discharged convicts, j^ 
and a female department in addition ; and with no less than 
fifty local committees for the different counties of the State, 
which co-operate and correspond, and that it seems to have 
unlimited powers of visiting the various prisons, etc., Mr. 
Horsley makes the following remarks upon their report: 
" Given, then, this society which reports annually to the 
Senate, and given also an enlightened public opinion, we 
are hardly prepared to find them speaking of the / mon- 
strous evils connected with our county gaols' and pointing 
out that, in the face of statutes, classification and separation 
of prisoners is almost necessarily disregarded and neglected 
in many cases ; and even ' the safeguard of security is not 
generally maintained.' ... It is frankly admitted that the 
county jail, as distinct from the State prison, remains, in a 
vast number of cases, ' the same vicious and abominable in- 
stitution that it was a century ago;' and the evidence of 
De Tocqueville, fifty years later, is quoted to the effect:^ 
' The gaols of the United States are the worst I have ever 
seen;' while so recently as 1877, the Prison Reform Confer- 
ence denounced the whole system as a disgrace to civiliza- 
tion, hopelessly, irremediably bad ! This, they say, is thor- 
oughly supported by the latest reports from various counties.!^ 
In regard to the sanitary condition of our prisons as 
h 15 



I/O 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



compared with that of English prisons, Mr. Horsly remarks : 
" The alarmingly high and unnecessarily fluctuating rate of 
mortality (77 per 1000 in some gaols as contrasted with our 
average of 8.4) is said to be caused by the innutritious 
quality as well as the scantiness of the amount of the diet, 
and the fact (impossible in England) that the ordinary sleep- 
ing-cells have no method of ventilation beyond the doors. 
Those generalizations," he says, " are supported by reports 
from local committees, and by some tables of great interest." 
He then proceeds to cite from the reports numerous state- 
ments which seem to fully support his conclusions. The 
closing paragraph of this paper on American Prison Reform, 
as exhibited in the report of the Prison Association of New 
York, contains a scathing and not undeserved rebuke, which 
it were well that those would heed who are responsible for 
the wretched condition of American jails. 

It is as follows :* " In fact, to read this report causes one 
perpetually to be turning back to the title-page to be sure 
one is not perusing John Howard's ' State of the Prisons,' 
as point after point comes up on which he animadverted 
with such success, and abuse after abuse is described from 
which our prisons have long been free, even before the in- 
troduction of a uniform system, which public intelligence 
mainly created before centralization was attempted. In- 
telligence, humanity, the knowledge of what has been 
achieved in other countries, — the report shows that these 
are not wanting to the Association. Has it utterly failed 
during thirty-eight years to educate and move an enlight- 
ened nation, that these things are still possible ?" 

That the prison system of Great Britain is superior in 
almost every respect to that of any of the States of the 
Union there can be no question. Rev. Mr. Dana, at the 
fourteenth annual session of the National Conference of 
Charities and Corrections, held at Omaha, Nebraska, in 1887, 
made the following remarks on this subject : 






CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



171 



" It may be of interest to the people of Nebraska, so far 
as they care for the experience of the rest of the world, to 
know that at present Great Britain, by general admission, 
has the best prison system extant. Among the things they 
deem to be settled, and the principles they deem established, 
are (1) that penal institutions are no longer to be conducted 
with a view to making them pecuniarily profitable to the 
State; (2) that politics are never to be allowed to enter into, 
or in any way affect their administration ; (3) that the State 
account system of labor is, all things considered, the best 
for the reformatory purposes always to be kept in view, and 
avoids most of the complications connected with the con- 
tract system. Further, let me add, in England, among 
penologists and prison reformers, the lessee system has 
been wholly repudiated, and is regarded as a relic of a bar- 
barous age, a reminder of the brutal methods once in vogue 
in convict establishments. Under these accepted principles 
of management, crime in Great Britain has been of late 
years steadily diminishing, and the number of her prisons 
has fallen from one hundred and thirteen to fifty-nine, while 
uniformity, economy, and improved administration have at 
the same time been secured." 

Under our system of government, it is evident that we 
can have no general system of prison management, and that 
entire uniformity is unattainable. Some approximation to 
this desirable end may eventually be secured through the 
efforts of the National Conference of Charities and Correc- 
tions, aided by the State Boards of the different States and 
the existing Prison Associations, and we may hope that some 
of the worst features of existing systems will be eliminated 
at no distant day, although the obstacles in the way of ac- 
complishing reforms conceded to be necessary, and correct- 
ing abuses that are generally admitted, are formidable and 
not to be easily overcome. In several of the States the 
lessee system prevails. Under this system, the prisoners 



172 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



sentenced to the State penitentiary are leased out to individ- 
uals or corporations, to work in the fields, on railroads, or 
in the mines, for longer or shorter periods, at a stipulated 
price paid to the State, and they are taken from the prison, 
and the custody of the warden, and consigned over to the 
lessees, whose interest is to get the greatest possible amount 
of work from them, at the least possible expense to them- 
selves. 

In an editorial article upon the methods of punishment 
in a late number of the Central Law Journal, the writer 
says, " In some of the States the penitentiary is becoming a 
sort of receiving-ship, where convicts abide until they are 
sold into slavery, or farmed out, if that expression is preferred, 
to the highest bidder, or to favored contractors. In due 
season, if this course is persevered in, it is safe to predict 
that the worst horrors of the galley of the penal colonies, 
even of Norfolk Island and the Siberian mines, will be re- 
produced in our own country. ... In its best estate, ' a 
prison is a house of care/ The horrors of prison-life have 
been described in prose by philanthropists who have striven 
to reform its abuses, and depicted with the embellishments 
of fancy in fiction and poetry, but we have never encountered 
a more revolting picture than that presented by the subter- 
ranean prison in which drudge, in dampness and darkness, 
the convicts who are farmed or sold to contractors. We 
can only compare it to that very notable prison described 
by Dante, over the entrance to which was the inscription, 
' Abandon hope, ye who enter here.' " 

Undoubtedly there are evils inherent in the lessee system 
which ought to cause it to be abandoned. In some of the 
States where this system prevails, an earnest effort is made 
to secure the health of the convicts, and protect them from 
abuse by means of State supervision, as explained by Mr. 
Hicks, warden of the penitentiary in Raleigh, N. C, at the 
conference of 1884. He says, in regard to the treatment of 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. iy$ 

convicts in that State, " No convicts are sent on roads out- 
side of the prison that are not supervised and controlled by 
the State authorities. A supervisor is appointed, and under 
him overseers and guards. From them we get reports every 
month. There is a physician at each separate set of works. 
In addition to that, one of the board of directors visits the 
works every month, examining the condition of the men, 
getting information in every way as to the management, 
whether there has been any abuse, whether the men have 
been overworked, whether they have been properly fed, 
clothed, etc. It is a matter looked into very carefully." 
In that State the system is presented in its best aspect. As 
the writer in the Central Law Journal remarks, however, 
" It is merely idle to say that due precautions will be taken 
that the convicts will be protected against inhuman treat- 
ment by government officers specially appointed and paid 
for that purpose ; that nothing shall be required of convicts 
out of the penitentiary that would not be required of them 
within it. The fatal error in this matter is the admission of 
private interest, in any form whatever, into the public pun- 
ishment of crime. There arises at once a temptation, and 
it is always a mistake and a misfortune to subject official 
virtue to avoidable temptation." s / r 

This system seems to have two objects in view, — namely, 
punishment and pay. The reformation of the convicts, by 
moral instruction or otherwise, is not one of its aims. It 
protects the community from his acts while the criminal is 
held as a prisoner, and leaves him at the end of his term no 
better, and probably worse, than before his conviction. -7^ 

Another system of prison management is known as the 
" contract system," under which the labor of the prisoners 
is contracted for at a certain price per day by manufacturers 
who furnish their own material, and work the convicts 
within the prison ; a foreman or manager employed by the 
contractor directing the work in the shop or factory, while 

IS* 



174 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

the warden and other officers and guards under him have 
the entire care, direction, and control of the prisoners in all 
other respects. This is the plan adopted, and which has 
been long practised in most of the State prisons in the 
Eastern and Middle, and some of the Western States. It is 
a system which may afford opportunity for some degree of 
education and moral improvement of the convicts when 
suitable provision is made for that purpose. Several ob- 
jections are urged against this system, and it has been 
abolished and replaced by another in several of the States. 
Its advantages, as stated in the report of the Committee on 
Crimes and Penalties to the National Conference of Correc- 
tions and Charities at their session in 1883, are that "it re- 
lieves the State from risking public funds in the hands of 
public officers in manufacturing and commerce, simplifies 
the immediate management of prison and prisoners, and 
furnishes for the time a definite and reasonably reliable in- 
come easily estimated." On the other hand, the system is 
in several respects inherently defective, and in its spirit and 
practice not adapted to the accomplishment " of the high 
purpose for which the State maintains the penitentiaries, — 
namely, protection from crimes through the reformation of ^ 
the offenders." The committee from whose report the 
above extracts are made, consisting of seven of the most 
able and prominent pcenologists in this country, including 
Mr. Brockway, of the Elmira Reformatory, concluded their 
remarks upon this system as follows : " It seems that the 
contract system must go ; it certainly would go if the wisdom 
of the times could suggest a satisfactory system of labor to 
replace it. It is understood that the public outcry against 
the system is largely demagogic, and is as much against 
every system of prison labor as against this particular form 
of it ; but there is little prospect that sober-minded citizens 
will consent to the cost, the corrupting effect, and the cruelty 
of maintaining the prisoners of our penitentiaries in idleness." 



A 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



175 



Of the system of prison labor on public account the 
committee say, " The public account plan — that is, where 
the State becomes the manufacturer, furnishing capital, 
conducting the manufactures, and disposing of the prod- 
ucts in open market — has been tried with varied success, 
and is now the system in several short-term prisons at least, 
and in the State prisons of California." The points in its 
favor are pointed out in this report, as well as the objections 
to it, and these objections are assumed to be " so weighty as 
to prevent, probably, its general adoption." " There is," 
say the committee, " the monetary risk, — not so much the 
ordinary hazard of capital in manufactures and commerce, 
nor the extraordinary hazard of public money so invested 
and managed by officials who, of themselves, have no prac- 
tical knowledge of the business they conduct, or personal 
liability in case of loss or failure, for these risks may be re- 
duced to a minimum, but rather the risk arising from the 
fact that the industries must be really under the control of 
a popular legislature whose action may be affected by 
partisan or other considerations than those governing a 
business firm in the transaction of its business." . . . " The 
public account system, in form as we are considering it, is 
impolitic, because of the large amount of investment re- 
quired and the popular suspicion when the public money is 
largely intrusted to individual investment and care. It is 
estimated that for plant, for material, for a stock of manu- 
factured goods, and for cost of citizen experts, each opera- 
tive or prisoner must represent one thousand dollars of 
capital. So that a prison of five hundred workers would 
require half a million of money for manufacturing, while 
for the State prisons of New York, upon this basis, three 
millions must be supplied by the tax-payers. It could 
hardly be expected that such an opportunity for patronage 
could long remain unused for partisan ends, or if by any 
means it should be kept strictly to its legitimate use, the 



176 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



A- 



necessary conflict to preserve it would of itself jeopard the 
general prison management It is questionable, also, 
whether it is not wrong in principle for the government of 
a State or a nation to directly engage in manufacturing and 
commercial enterprise with funds forced by taxation from 
the pockets of the people." There is another plan, called 
the " piece-price plan," of which the committee say in their 
report, " There is a possible substitute for the contract and 
public account systems, wellnigh free from the objections 
named. It is the piece-price plan, — that is to say, the 
contractor shall supply the machinery, materials, and, per- 
haps, citizen expert instructors, receiving and disposing of 
the manufactured goods on his own account, of course. 
The State furnishes operatives (prisoners), whose services 
are to be paid for, not by the day, as now, but by the piece 
or process for work done to a given standard of perfection. 
By this system (1) the State is relieved from furnishing 
manufacturing capital ; (2) the whole business of the prison 
governors is with the prisoners ; (3) the control of the pris- 
oners is unified ; (4) the evil influence of the contract em- 
ployers is abated, because the contractor gains nothing by 
extorting exorbitant tasks, — there is no motive for chi- 
canery ; (5) the State is most sure to receive the real value 
of the prisoners' labor, more or less, and the State alone is 
responsible for the amount the prisoner shall earn ; (6) the 
piece-price plan best enables the prison government to place 
the prisoner in condition, as to labor and living, closely 
analogous to the natural social state in this regard, the pris- 
oner may be made to live and enjoy whatever he can earn, but 
no more, and such a situation is more serviceable in training 
and testing under the remedial regime ; (7) since the piece- 
price plan is almost universally practised by private manu- 
facturers, the fair rate per piece can be easily ascertained, 
and may by law, if thought best, be fixed at the average 
paid free laborers in the same locality for the same quality 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. iyy 

y 

of work, thus to the nearest possible point equalizing the 
valuation of prison labor and free labor by which injurious 
competition here, if any exists, is removed." 

The committee further say, " Contractors generally ex- 
press themselves satisfied with such a system, because by it 
they are relieved from all anxiety and liability for the 
quantity of work the prisoners shall do or not do, being 
sure to get an equivalent for every dollar paid to the State 
for labor. 

" The piece-price plan can be put in place of the contract 
or public account system easily and without injury; the 
present industries may be, and naturally would be, con- ' 
tinued. The system of accounts required is simple, and 
may be fully guarded against fraud by the identity of in- 
terest in earnings between the State and the prisoner. 

" Prison industries should always subserve conjointly three 
grand purposes, which are, when stated inversely as to their 
importance, income, discipline, rehabilitation. Believing the 
plan here proposed best meets this requirement, and quite 
removes any real or fancied ground of complaint from the 
mercantile or laboring classes, it is recommended that the 
piece-price plan be put in the place of the contract and 
public account system of employing prisoners." 

It is to be remembered that the penitentiary system itself 
is of recent origin, and the various systems of management, 
and of the employment of prisoners . in useful labor has \ 
been largely experimental. The committee from whose 
report we have made the foregoing extracts say that it 
originated almost within the present century, and that " it 
was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that 
attention was much given to the horrors, abuses, and errors 
of the existing criminal codes and penalties. Yet, withal, 
too near the barbarism of the dark ages to be entirely rid 
of the errors it was intended to correct, the penitentiary 
treatment of criminals was the attempt to moderate some 



i 7 8 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



punishments, and to abolish others repugnant to the public 
sense, and to better adjust the punishment to the offence, in 
the expectation that confinement, hard labor, and the pain 
of imprisonment, with opportunity for meditation, would 
produce penitence, the supposed precursor and condition 
of self-restraint and moral reformation. The principle of 
pain inflicted for deterrence, and privations for penitence, 
was preserved, and is to-day maintained. It was in 1790 
the State prison at Philadelphia was erected ; the New York 
penitentiary in 1796; other States following quickly, as 
Massachusetts in 1800; Maryland in 181 1 ; Vermont, 1808; 
New Hampshire, 181 2 ; and about the same time New Jersey, 
Tennessee, and Kentucky moved in the matter. The laws 
providing for these prisons were accompanied usually with 
the repeal of the death penalty for many crimes. It was 
soon apparent that the penitentiary system was no pre- 
ventive of crimes, and as early as 1 822 the question was 
carefully and seriously canvassed of abandoning it altogether, 
with a return to the old sanguinary punishments. It was 
concluded finally that, notwithstanding the penitentiary 
system was wellnigh a failure, it must be preserved, be- 
cause corporal punishments and the death penalty for 
crimes generally would not be again approved by the senti- 
ment of the American people, and transportation for crime 
was impracticable. The real obstacle to the success of the 
system was the same sixty years ago as it is to-day. It is 
believed to be the vain reliance upon punishment to prevent 
crimes. The projectors of the penitentiary system seemed 
not to perceive it, and now we are marvellously slow in 
learning it. Can there be any doubt that had the peniten- 
tiary system at its inception been pervaded with the principle 
of reformation, and the alternative of incapacitatio7i~ the in- 
determinate sentence principle, . . . there would have been 
better results reached and greater progress attained in the 
treatment of criminals and the prevention of crime?" 



\ 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. x ^q 

The committee, in the last three sentences above recited, 
have struck the key-note to all progression towards the 
proper treatment of criminals and the prevention of crime, 
and enunciated the principle which lies at the foundation of 
all upward progress in social ethics and practical religion, 
and inspires all wise and intelligent efforts for the elevation 
and improvement of mankind. 

We may safely assume, in view of the progressive spirit 
of this age in all humanitarian and economic affairs, that 
the system of prison management best calculated to promote 
the welfare of both the prisoners and of society will be 
adopted at no very distant day. But in this country, so 
long as the policy of the great political parties continues to 
be what it has been for the last half-century, whatever system 
may be determined upon as the best, there will continue to 
exist a serious obstacle in the way of making it successful. 

The difficulty alluded to arises from its conflict with 
another system which has been established for many years, 
and has become so deeply rooted that it resists all the 
efforts of philanthropists and friends of public right and 
justice to abolish it. This is familiarly known as " the spoils 
system," which demands that as often as a change takes 
place in the national or State government, all appointive 
offices shall be filled by the friends of the " new administra- 
tion," regardless of the fitness or experience of those thereby 
displaced. When it was first announced in Congress, be- -j- 
tween fifty and sixty years ago, as a political axiom, that 
" to the victor belong the spoils," it was denounced as cor- 
rupting in its tendency, and injurious to the public interests 
in its operation ; but however much the principle was dis- 
claimed and denounced at the time, it was soon adopted, 
and has ever since been acted upon by both the great politi- 
cal parties into which the population was divided, and has 
been a principal cause of the bribery, corruption, and fraud 
which have attended our elections and are a shame and 



!8 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

disgrace to our country. Its demoralizing effects have been 
everywhere felt, and have extended throughout the social, 
political, and business circles, and it has lowered the standard 
of character and morals among our people. It imports 
that all is fair in politics, as in war, and, as war ever pro- 
duces a new flood of crime, so do our election contests, 
which are waged upon the same principle as a war for con- 
quest and spoils. 

But what, it may be asked, has all this to do with pcenol- 
ogy, and the management of our prisons ? The answer is 
plain, and has freqently been given by those who have writ- 
ten and spoken upon the comparative advantages of the 
different systems of management. In order to successfully 
carry on a manufacturing business, employing five or six 
hundred men, business experience and capacity of a high 
order and approved integrity, as well as tact and special 
adaptation to the position, are indispensable qualifications 
of the warden and manager, and, when these have been 
secured, no change can safely be made on account of politi- 
cal opinions or party affiliations or policy. But the execu- 
tive and legislative departments of the State government 
are changed every year or second year, and on the accession 
of a new party, or of a new executive and legislature of the 
same party, the clamor for rotation in office, or for a distri- 
bution of the spoils among the victors, is irresistible ; and no 
matter how faithful and capable a warden may have been, he 
is liable to be displaced in order to make room for one who 
perhaps has no other claim to, or fitness for, the position 
than his ability to render effective service to the party in power. 

With all these difficulties in the way of progress and the 
adoption of practical and wise methods for the treatment 
of the convicts in our prisons, it is no matter of wonder 
that crime increases, instead of being diminished, in this 
country, nor that it is to-day considered as a debatable 
question whether, as a people, we are really becoming bet- 



CONDITION OF PRISONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



I8l 



ter or worse. That few, if any, of our jails or prisons are 
in a satisfactory condition is conclusively shown by the re- 
ports of the various Boards of Charities and Corrections ; 
and that a large majority of them are in such a bad condi- -/- 
tion, and so improperly conducted as to be nurseries of 
crime and schools of vice, appears to be equally true. It is 
humiliating to a citizen of the American Republic, whose 
government has so long been the boast of its orators and 
leading statesmen as " the best government on the earth," 
to be obliged to confess these disagreeable facts, while we 
have the example of Great Britain, under a monarchial 
government, reducing the number of her prisons by nearly 
one-half in half a century, and diminishing the number of 
crimes committed in nearly the same proportion, and by 
enlightened legislation having established the best prison -f" 
system now existing. Are we as a people so weak, and 
blind to our national and individual interests, and so cor- 
rupted by our conditions and selfish aims and pursuits that 
we have become or remain indifferent to the principles of 
humanity and the calls of duty to our fellow-men ; that we 
allow these great public evils to continue? 

While these dark clouds are still hanging over us, and 
the turbid waters of a vicious and corrupt political system 
are dashing upon us and percolating through all the veins 
of our whole social and political fabric, it is gratifying to 
observe the interest that has been awakened within the last 
few years in the work of attempting the reformation of 
criminals, and especially juvenile offenders, and preventing 
crime by taking care of and educating the neglected and 
dependent children, and such as are surrounded by evil in- 
fluences that would be likely to lead them into lives of in- 
famy and shame, and securing suitable homes for them in 
good families. The institutions and associations created or 
formed for these and kindred objects will be referred to 
hereafter. 

16 



!g2 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN ALL ACTION 
RELATIVE TO CRIME. 

When we lay it down as an axiom, that all crime should 
be treated as a disease, we are stating a proposition which 
we have entertained for more than forty years, during over 
thirty-five years of which we were engaged in administering 
the criminal laws of the State, and which we have never 
seen any reason to change or modify. This view of the 
character of crime and its treatment will be found on ex- 
amination to satisfy all the demands of justice, and to secure 
all the ends which legislators have sought to obtain through 
the infliction of punishment. It excludes all idea of vin- 
dictiveness, or the rendering of evil for evil, and harmonizes 
all the dealings of governments and communities with 
offenders against the criminal laws with the highest standard 
of benevolence and human kindness and duty. It elimi- 
nates from punishment the character of atonement or ret- 
ribution suffered as an expiation, to appease the wrathful 
indignation of society or the State, and removes all the 
difficulties which have puzzled moralists and confused courts 
and juries, who have based the right to condemn and exe- 
cute judgment for wrong done upon the mental or moral 
condition of the perpetrator at the moment when the act 
was done. 

To many, and perhaps a large majority, of the educated, 
moral, and religious portion of our people, who have given 
no special attention to the subject, the proposition that pun- 
ishment for crime is wrong, and ought to be discarded as 
barbarous and inhuman, suggests no other idea than that 
of opening the prison-doors and allowing all criminals to 
go free and commit fresh crimes with impunity, and without 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. 



183 



restraint or control, — the idea of anarchy and a relapse into 
the worst condition of savagery. Nothing could be more 
erroneous, or farther from the thought of those who repu- 
diate punishment. Philanthropy, justice, and mercy alike 
require that those who are so morally diseased as to be 
capable of committing crime should be restrained and sub- 
jected to such treatment and discipline as are calculated to 
cure the disease, if curable, and, if incurable, that such re- 
straint shall be perpetual. No one of sound mind doubts 
the right of the government or of the family and friends of 
one afflicted with insanity to restrain and control such in- 
sane person, and, if necessary for the protection of the 
community or the individual thus afflicted from doing or 
receiving harm, to subject him to confinement and bonds, 
however painful such treatment may be. But in no civilized 
country are insane persons held to be subject to punishment 
or to any moral accountability, even for the taking of a 
human life ; and the treatment they are subjected to is not 
for atonement or retribution, and does not proceed from a 
spirit of resentment or vindictiveness. We say of such that 
they are the subjects of mental disease, or some physical 
disease which affects the mind and renders the subject of it 
incapable of acting rationally, or impels him to act irration- 
ally ; and hence we attribute to him no moral turpitude in 
the commission of acts otherwise criminal, and impose no 
punishment as a consequence of such acts. But if the 
mental faculties are not so clouded or obscured that the 
actor is not capable of distinguishing what is morally right 
from what is wrong, he is held amenable to the criminal law, 
and deserving of punishment according to the degree of 
moral turpitude manifested by the act committed. But if 
we assume that all crime ought to be treated as a moral 
disease, or as caused by an unsound condition of the mind 
proceeding from disease, it is evident that we can no more 
determine the moral responsibility of the perpetrator of a 



1 84 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



wrongful act in the one case than in the other. In a former 
chapter we have quoted the language of Sir William Black- 
stone on the end or cause of human punishment, wherein 
he states not what was then practically regarded as its aim 
or purpose, but what should not, and what should, be 
treated as the final cause or end of punishment for crime. 
We repeat this language because of the great truth it ex- 
presses, the full import of which does not seem to have 
been understood by its eminent author, but to have flowed 
from his mind and pen as an inspired utterance, and a 
prophecy of a more exalted social state for man upon the 
earth. He says, " This is not by way of atonement or 
retribution for the crime committed, for that must be left 
to the just determination of the Supreme Being, but as a 
precaution against future offences of the same kind." 

Not by way of atonement, or satisfaction to the State or 
community for the wrong done, nor yet by way of expiation, 
to allay the resentment or appease the wrath of the com- 
munity because of the offence, but as a necessary precaution 
against the commission of other public wrongs. But in 
this statement of a great and pregnant truth, the most im- 
portant of all the just objects of what is denominated pun- 
ishment is wholly omitted, — viz., the cure of the offender. 

It is true that, in enumerating the means of attaining the 
ends of punishment, he says they are effected in .three ways, 
one of which is the amendment of the offender, " for which 
purpose all corporal punishments, fines, and temporary exile 
are inflicted." These means of effecting the amendment of 
the offender are all directed to the lower instincts and baser 
qualities of the wretched violator of the criminal laws, — to 
his fears, his sense of shame, and his dread of physical 
suffering, and contain no hint of reformation by the enlight- 
enment and cultivation of the moral faculties and higher 
sentiments of the man. Neither do they suggest any idea 
of that duty which, in every just government, the whole 



>r 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. 



185 



owe to each individual, of securing to him the greatest 
practicable amount of benefit. 

Now, while we are repudiating punishment for crime, it 
seems best that this term should be clearly defined, in order 
to avoid any misapprehension in regard to our position. 
To punish, as defined by Webster, and as it is commonly 
understood, is " to afflict with pain, loss, or calamity for a 
crime or fault ; primarily to inflict bodily pain, as to punish 
a thief with pillory or stripes," etc. ; " to reward with pain 
or suffering inflicted on the offender." " Punished" is de- 
fined as " afflicted with pain or evil as the retribution of a 
crime or offence; chastised." It is thus seen that in the 
strict sense of the term, which is also the popular one, pun- 
ishment embraces the idea of retribution for crime, by the 
infliction of bodily pain or suffering, and implies vindictive- 
ness, resentment, retaliation, atonement to appease the anger 
of an injured community. If, therefore, we eliminate from 
it all idea of atonement or retribution, and leave these to 
the just determination of the All wise Father of us all, it is 
no longer punishment, but the just and merciful administra- 
tion of such treatment as the nature and circumstances of 
the case and the good of the offender may require. 

The elements of vindictiveness and resentment in punish- 
ment for crime, according to the common acceptation of its 
meaning and purpose, have been recently illustrated in a 
neighboring State. A cruel and wanton murder was com- 
mitted, and the supposed murderer was arrested and com- 
mitted to prison to await his trial, upon which, if convicted, 
his sentence would be that he should be hung by the neck 
until he should be dead. For safety the supposed murderer 
was placed in a cage, constructed of strong bars of steel ; 
and, in consequence of the excitement which the report of 
the murder had created in the community, the prison was 
barricaded and guarded for the purpose of protecting the 
alleged murderer by resisting any assault that might be 

16* 



j 85 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

made upon it. It is reported that the man confessed his 
guilt to the prison officials, and that so great was the feel- 
ing of resentment and the indignation of the people towards 
the perpetrator of the crime, that a thousand men, moved 
by a common impulse, gathered about the prison, destroyed 
the barricades, overcame the guards and entered the prison, 
broke down the steel-barred cage, took the prisoner out, and 
appeased their wrath by putting him to death. Here, if this 
account be true, were a thousand citizens of an American 
State, residing in or near Viroqua, Wisconsin, acting in 
concert in the commission of a murder, by voluntarily im- 
buing their hands in the blood of a fellow-citizen, each one 
of them, whether actively engaged in the commission of the 
deed or aiding and abetting it, thereby rendering himself a 
murderer and amenable to the penalty of death. How 
much the prevailing sentiment which demands vindictive 
punishment for crime may have had to do with fostering 
the vengeful spirit by which these men were actuated can- 
not be told, but that it tends to such results cannot be 
doubted. Had the perpetrators of this great crime against 
humanity and the laws of the State been imbued with the 
great principle of a common brotherhood among men, and 
been taught that all crime proceeds from some inherited or \ 
acquired disease which gives force and activity to the lower 
propensities, and obscures or perverts the action of the 
higher sentiments, the thought of putting to death a help- 
less man under the circumstances detailed would have been 
abhorrent to their own feelings as the crime of which their 
victim himself was supposed to be guilty, and would have 
appeared to them as cowardly and mean as it was criminal. 
When we consider that crime is caused by inherited ten- 
dencies derived from ancestors ; from evil example, teach- 
ings, and associations in childhood and youth ; from igno- 
rance, poverty, and idleness, and from strong appetites and 
passions, avarice, cupidity, and unholy ambitions, the seeds 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. i%j 

of which were implanted in the nature of the individual 
before his birth, or imbibed from his surroundings after- 
wards, and before he was capable of distinguishing between 
right and wrong, we perceive that he may be the creature, 
and perhaps the victim, of circumstances beyond his con- 
trol, and we may well hesitate to pronounce any judgment 
against him based upon his moral accountability, of which 
he can have very little or no appreciation until his moral 
perceptions have been opened and his higher faculties de- 
veloped and cultivated. -t 

Phrenology locates the organs of the moral sentiments, 
such as benevolence, veneration, hope, ideality, firmness, 
conscientiousness, in the superior or higher portion of the 
brain ; and the organs of the propensities, or animal appe- 
tites, passions, and proclivities, such as destructiveness, 
combativeness, acquisitiveness, self-esteem, love of approba- 
tion, etc., in the inferior or lower portion of the brain, and 
hence infers that the moral sentiments, acting through the 
intellectual or reasoning faculties, should control the action 
of the propensities ; and that unless these, with the other 
organs of the brain, are so balanced that each shall perform 
its legitimate functions in perfect harmony with the health- 
ful action of all the others, without excess, or the undue 
preponderance of any, the character of the individual will 
necessarily be faulty in proportion to the inharmony result- 
ing therefrom. Thus, if acquisitiveness be large, and con- 
scientiousness small, the individual may cheat, defraud, or 
steal ; or if combativeness and destructiveness be large, and 
benevolence and conscientiousness small, he may be a mur- 
derer, and delight in cruelty. If, as the devotees of this 
science (or what is claimed as such) assume, the several 
faculties, sentiments, propensities, appetites, passions, and 
proclivities natural to men are all indicated by certain 
organs of the brain which are manifested externally upon 
the surface of the cranium that encloses the brain, so as to 



1 88 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

be clearly discovered by the skilled craniologist, whereby 
the true character of the individual may be read as in an 
open book, by comparing the relative power of each of such 
organs, and if these exist without any choice or volition of 
their possessor, who shall dare undertake to judge how far 
he is morally responsible, or amenable to human punish- 
ment, if the natural qualities of his mind and character 
shall lead him to the commission of crime ? To be qualified 
for such judgment it would be necessary that we should be 
able to do so from the same stand-point which he occupied 
when the criminal act was committed, and this would evi- 
dently be an impossibility. 

Now, whether the faculties of the mind and the qualities 
which constitute individual character are typified by certain 
prominences or depressions that may be traced upon the ex- 
terior surface of the head or not, we know that such facul- 
ties exist, and manifest themselves in the actions of men. 
We know, too, that in the character of the best and noblest 
of our race there is, and has ever been, an admixture of 
evil ; and to us it appears equally true that in the characters 
of the worst and most desperate of men there is still " a 
little leaven" of good that may eventually " leaven the 
whole lump." If there is not sufficient strength of the 
moral perceptions to control our evil propensities, the latter 
will inevitably lead us into wrong-doing. The tree of life 
may be within our view, and its fruits may be fair, but so 
long as to us it is guarded by a flaming sword we shall not 
reach it, though that sword be only the shadow of the evil 
existing in our own natures. 

Mr. Horsley says, in the preface to his " Jottings from 
Jails," " One frequently hears a story of John Bradford 
quoted with approval, in which it is said that, seeing a 
condemned criminal on his way to Tyburn Tree, he ex- 
claimed, ' There, but for the grace of God, goes John 
Bradford,' and the thought has often occurred to the writer, 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. 



189 



when called upon to sentence men to imprisonment for high 
crimes, including murder, that had I been born with all the 
mental and moral characteristics and natural proclivities 
which the prisoner inherited from his ancestors, and been 
surrounded by the same influences to which he has been 
subject through his past life, I should certainly have been 
capable of committing similar crimes. This thought dis- 
arms the mind of the judge of all austerity or resentment 
in the infliction of the punishment which the law demands, 
and constrains him to look with pity upon his unfortunate 
brother, who was thus born to be the victim of his evil 
passions and propensities. We are perfectly well aware 
that when we represent the criminal as the victim of his 
moral, mental, and physical constitution, and therefore as a 
proper object for commiseration, we are antagonizing that 
public sentiment which has been almost universal, and 
which still inheres in our criminal laws, to which we have 
more than once adverted, and which demand exemplary or 
vindictive punishment for criminal wrong-doing. But we 
are also aware that, until a new and more humane popular 
sentiment was aroused in the latter part of last century by 
John Howard and those whom he was able to interest in 
behalf of the prisoners of his day, the general sentiment of 
the most enlightened nations approved of such cruel and 
inhuman treatment of criminals as now appears too shock- 
ing and barbarous ever to have been tolerated even by a 
half-civilized people. Our present systems of treatment, 
though vastly more humane and just than the old, are not 
satisfactory in their results, and some of them are so faulty 
in principle as to be entirely disapproved by the best and 
ablest of our philanthropic citizens who have devoted at- 
tention to the subject; and the lamentable fact that our 
penitentiary systems have failed to greatly diminish the 
number of convictions for crime is too clearly shown by 
reliable statistics to be denied. One of two conclusions, 



I go TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

then, is certainly true, — either our modes of dealing with 
crime are based upon wrong principles, or the results are 
inevitable and must continue. The latter conclusion we 
cannot accept, nor do we believe a majority of our intelli- 
gent fellow-citizens are willing to adopt it. 

What, then, is the principle upon which crime may be 
treated, with the reasonable hope of diminishing the number 
of criminals in a degree proportionate to the increasing in- 
telligence and material prosperity of our people ? This is a 
momentous question, but it is one which in our opinion, 
the history and experiences of the last quarter of a century 
has answered by indubitable and conclusive evidence, as it had 
been answered by the wisest moral and religious teachers 
centuries ago, in the language we have recited in preced- 
ing chapters. It is the great principle of humanity and 
common brotherhood, which forbids that we shall ever 
cease to seek to do good to the meanest of God's children 
in their most miserable conditions, and commands us to do 
them no evil. When this principle is accepted as true, it is 
still asked, How is it to be applied in practice, so as to 
secure the desired results in the treatment of criminals ? 
Our mental constitution is such that, in order to understand 
this, we must have the most forcible and simple illustrations. 
The parables and similitudes by which Jesus illustrated the 
great truths which he taught made a more profound im- 
pression upon the minds, of his hearers than did the direct 
and simple language of his Sermon on the Mount. In 
order to illustrate, and show the practical application of the 
principle of humanity and brotherhood in the treatment of 
crime, we have laid it down as an axiom that all crime 
should be treated as a disease. Now, it is denied that the 
mind can ever be diseased, and it may be impossible to de- 
tect the bodily disease which produces that mental disturb- 
ance or aberration of the mind which is called insanity ; yet 
the similitude of lunacy to physical disease is so perfect, 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. jgi 

that it has almost universally been so denominated, and so 
we speak of " ministering to a mind diseased." That the 
same similitude as perfectly and truly illustrates the condition 
of the sinful violators of the criminal laws of the country, 
we have endeavored to show. For this view of crime we 
have the highest authority. The ancient prophets repre- 
sented the rebellious and obdurate Jews as covered with 
putrefying sores from the crowns of their heads to the soles 
of their feet. When Jesus was rebuked for associating with 
publicans and sinners by some who claimed to be more holy, 
he explained to them that " the whole need not a physician, 
but they that are sick" and one of the most lovely and en- 
dearing appellations applied to him is that of " the good 
physician," the healer of sin-sick souls. How many men, 
in their prayers and supplications for grace and strength to 
resist the temptations of the world, have represented them- 
selves (as I have heard my venerable father do hundreds of 
times before the morning meal) as covered with wounds and 
bruises and putrefying sores, invoking the ministration of 
the Great Physician, and the application of " the balm that 
was in Gilead," — "A healing balm for every wound, a 
cordial for our fears," as expressed by the poet. We can- 
not conceive of any motive which should actuate the physi- 
cian in the treatment of physical disease, or the nurses and 
friends of his patient, or which should control the action of 
those having the treatment and care of an insane person, 
which should not equally dictate and govern the treatment 
of the criminal. Any exhibition of cruelty or resentment, 
of infliction of unnecessary pain upon a sick or insane per- 
son, is shocking to the moral sense of every one who is 
possessed of ordinary benevolence and that sense of justice 
which is common among enlightened people, and would be 
considered as evidence of a low, ignorant, and vile character. 
The sentiment that would justify such conduct is demoral- 
izing in its tendency and effects, and equally so, in our 



192 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



opinion, is that sentiment which justifies vindictive punish- 
ment for crime. Indeed, as we have shown by one out of 
thousands of instances which might have been referred to, 
this sentiment is a fruitful cause of many of the most fearful 
crimes, — crimes which this sentiment justifies, while it 
secures immunity to the perpetrators of them. 

Sixty years ago, George Combe, of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
published his great work on " The Constitution of Man, 
considered in Relation to External Objects," wherein he 
treated, among other things, of punishment under the 
natural laws. This work, which advocates the truths of 
phrenological science, though criticised by some theologians 
as tending to conclusions not in harmony with their inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures, has been ably defended by 
others, who believed there was no conflict between phre- 
nology and revelation, but that, rightly understood, they 
are in perfect harmony with each other. However this may 
be, the great truths of physiological, mental, and moral 
science which it advocates are now too thoroughly estab- 
lished in the minds of the best thinkers of the present age, 
who are seeking after truth without regard to preconceived 
opinions or prejudices, to be successfully assailed. 

After treating of the sentiments and propensities which 
make up the character and affect the actions of the individ- 
ual, and pointing out such as tend to the commission of 
crime, and those that tend to its opposite, he says, " We 
perceive, therefore, as the first feature of the moral and in- 
tellectual law, that the sentiments, absolutely and in all cir- 
stances, declare against offences, and demand imperatively 
that they shall be brought to an end. There is a great 
difference, however, between the means which they suggest 
for accomplishing this object and those prompted by the 
propensities. The latter blindly inflict animal resentment, 
without the slightest regard to the causes which led to the 
crime or the consequences of the punishment. They seize 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. j^ 

the aggressor, worry, bite, or strangle him, and there they 
begin and terminate." 

" The moral and intellectual faculties, on the other hand, 
embrace even the criminal himself within the range of their 
sympathies. Benevolence desires to render him virtuous, 
and therefore happy, as well as to rescue his victim. Ven- 
eration desires that he shall be treated as a man; and 
conscientiousness declares that it cannot with satisfaction 
acquiesce in any administration towards him that does not 
tend to remove the motives of his misconduct, and to pre- 
vent their recurrence. The first step, then, which the moral 
and intellectual faculties combine in demanding is a full ex- 
position of the causes of the offence, and the consequences 
of the mode of treatment proposed." This writer, assuming 
that every crime proceeds from the abuse of some faculty 
or another, and that the causes of such abuse arise from 
three sources, — first, from particular organs being too large 
and spontaneously active; second, from excessive excite- 
ment from external causes ; or, thirdly, from ignorance of 
what are uses and what are abuses of the faculties, — says, 
" The moral and intellectual powers next demand, What is 
the cause of particular organs being too large and active in 
individuals ? Phrenology, for answer, points to the law of 
hereditary descent, by which the organs most energetic in 
the parents determine those which shall predominate in the 
child. Intellect, then, infers that, according to this view, 
certain individuals are unfortunate at birth in having re- 
ceived organs from their parents so ill-proportioned that 
abuse of some of them is almost an inevitable consequence, 
if they are left to the sole guidance of their own suggestions. 
Phrenology replies that the fact appears to be exactly so." 
He states, as evidence of the truth of this proposition, that 
" In the phrenological hall is exhibited a large assemblage 
of skulls and casts of the heads of criminals, collected from 
Europe, Africa, and America, and an undeniable feature of 
in 17 



194 



TREATMENT OE CRIME. 



* 



them all is a great preponderance of the organs of the 
animal propensities over those of the moral sentiments and 
intellect." "I have," he says, " examined the cerebral de- 
velopment and inquired into the external circumstances of 
a considerable number of criminals, and have no hesitation 
in saying, that if, in the case of every offender, the three 
sources of crime here enumerated were investigated, reported 
upon, and published, the conviction would become irresist- 
ible that the individual was the victim of his nature and ex- 
ternal condition. . . . The public err through ignorance, 
and need only to know better to insure their going into the 
right path." 

" Further, intellect perceives and the moral sentiments 
acknowledge that these causes subsist independently of the 
will of the offender. The criminal, for example, is not the 
cause of the unfortunate preponderance of the animal 
organs in his own brain, neither is he the cause of the ex- 
ternal excitement which seduces his propensities into abuse, 
or of the intellectual ignorance in which he is involved. 
Nevertheless, the moral and intellectual faculties of the in- 
different spectator of his condition do not, on this account, 
admit that he ought, either for his own sake or that of 
society, to be permitted to proceed in an unrestricted course 
of crime. They absolutely insist upon arresting his pro- 
gress, and their first question is, how may this best be 
done? Intellect answers, by removing the causes which 
produce the offences. 

" The first cause, the great preponderance of animal 
organs, cannot by any means yet known be summarily re- 
moved. Intellect therefore points out another alternative, — 
viz., to supply by moral and physical restraint the control 
which, in a brain better constituted, is afforded by large 
moral and intellectual organs ; in short, to place the of- 
fender under such a degree of effective control as absolutely 
to prevent the abuses of his faculties. Benevolence acknowl- 



PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GOVERN. 



195 



edges this to be kind, veneration to be respectful, and con- 
scientiousness to be just, at once to the offender himself, 
and to society ; and intellect perceives that whenever it is 
adopted it will form an important step towards preventing a 
repetition of crimes. 

. " The second cause, — viz., great external excitement, may 
be removed by withdrawing the individual from its influence. 
Thus, any restraint and control which serve to remedy the 
first will directly tend to accomplish this second object at the 
same time. 

" The third cause, being moral and intellectual ignorance, 
may be removed by conveying instruction to the higher 
faculties of the mind. If these principles be sound, the 
measures now recommended ought, when viewed in all 
their consequences, to be not only the most just and be- 
nevolent, but at the same time the most advantageous that 
could be adopted. 1 ' 

Contrasting the animal system in the treatment of crime 
with the moral, Mr. Combe says, " Under the animal 
system no inquiry is made into the future proceedings of 
the offender, and he is turned loose on society under the 
unabated influence of all the causes which led to his in- 
fringement of the law, and, as effects never cease while 
their causes continue to operate, he repeats his offence, and 
again becomes the object of a new animal infliction. Under 
the moral system the causes would be removed, and the 
evil effects would cease. Under the animal system, the 
lower propensities of the offender and of society are main- 
tained in habitual excitement, for the punishment proceeds 
from the propensities, and is addressed to the propensities. . . . 
Under the moral system again, the whole faculties exercised 
and addressed in restraining and instructing the offender 
are the human powers. The propensities are employed 
merely as the servants of the moral sentiments in accom- 
plishing their benignant purposes, and benevolence is as 



I9 6 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

actively engaged in behalf of the offender as of society at 
large." 

After referring to the fact that the office of public execu- 
tioner " is odious, execrable, and universally contemned," 
Mr. Combe adds, that " under the moral system the criminal 
would be committed to persons whose duties would be 
identical with those of the clergyman, the physician, and 
the teacher. These are the executioners under the moral 
laws; and just because their avocations are highly grateful 
to the sentiments, these are the most esteemed of mankind." 
Dr. Buchanan, in " The New Education," contrasts the 
animal and moral systems of treatment in an equally forcible 
manner. He says (p. 115), "The vindictive sentiment 
which comes in and clamorously asserts that justice re- 
quires the punishment of the criminal, and is basely de- 
frauded when he is kindly educated into virtue, is the fierce 
inspiration of the malignant passions which are themselves 
the essence of crime, and which are roused into action by 
the aggressions of the criminals. He who cannot look 
upon criminals of every grade with the sentiment, ' Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do,' has not yet 
learned the chief lesson of ethics. The criminal and his 
victim are both objects of compassion, and the compassion 
for the criminal is greater as his misfortune is greater, involv- 
ing his soul, and extending its calamitous effects beyond 
the present life. 

" True, it is right to defend ourselves against the criminal, 
because it is a necessity ; but he is a poor thinker whose 
judgment becomes entangled in the meshes of passion, and 
cannot see that the criminal is the victim of an adverse fate 
(which might have overtaken himself), whose reclamation 
calls for our help as loudly as the spectacle of a drowning 
man. If we cannot control him we may be compelled to 
fight him for the protection of ourselves ; but whenever we 
have physical power to control him, and do not proceed to 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 



197 



his redemption, we become criminals ourselves. The State 
which punishes instead of reforming its criminals, is a 
criminal itself, or a victim to the contagion of crime, for all 
crimes are contagious. The knave tempts other men to 
tricks and treachery to circumvent him, and the homicide 
makes homicides of others who are tempted to kill him in 
advance. Thus the mob hangs the murderer, and govern- 
ments have only of late risen a little above the animal con- 
tagion of crime, and begun to think seriously of reformation 
instead of torture." 

We hope that we have now made it clear to the mind of 
the intelligent reader that the moral system of treatment, as 
explained and illustrated in this chapter, is not only based 
upon the true principles of equity and justice, but that its 
adoption is calculated to secure, in the highest degree, the 
greatest amount of benefit, both to the offender and to 
society ; and that it has been shown to be equally clear that 
so long as punishment is inflicted upon the animal principle, 
both are injured by the infliction ; and that there can be but 
little hope of diminishing crime and improving the condition 
of society, until the latter system shall be abandoned, and 
the former adopted. In the next chapter we shall treat of 
some of the evils of our present system of punishment for 
crime. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM OF PUNISH- 
MENT FOR CRIME. 

It has, we believe, become an almost universally accepted 
fact in the public sentiment, that all public exhibitions of 
corporal punishment for crime are demoralizing in their 
effects upon society, and injurious, instead of being benefi- 

17* 



198 treatment of crime. 

cial, to the offender. Hence the whipping-post, the stocks, 
the pillory, the ducking-stool, and other devices for inflict- 
ing bodily pain in an open and public manner, have almost 
everywhere been abolished, and criminals condemned to 
death are executed within the prison walls or inclosure, and 
only a few persons who are designated for that purpose are 
admitted to witness the deliberate extinguishment of a 
human life under the sanction of a human law. It is within 
our recollection when the greatest publicity was given to 
executions of criminals, upon the idea of inspiring terror in 
the minds of the beholders as a deterrent from crime, and on 
these occasions thousands of men, women, and children 
congregated to witness the tragic horror. But when atten- 
tion was directed to the fact, which was confirmed by ob- 
servation, that the effect of such exhibitions was brutalizing, 
and tended to increase, rather than diminish, crime, public 
executions were abolished. The same principle which 
prompted this change, if rightly understood and logically 
followed out, and practically applied, would indubitably lead 
us to the approval and adoption of " the moral system of 
treatment," as explained in the last chapter, and effectually 
eradicate all thought of retributive punishment. The right 
which the State exercises to restrain and control the action 
of its citizens, in order to secure the peace, good order, and 
safety of society, is limited by the necessity upon which the 
right is based, and involves a corresponding duty. This 
duty, in case of a violation of the criminal law, is to inquire 
into the causes which led to the offence, the circumstances 
attending it, and what discipline or treatment is most likely 
to reform the criminal and make him a useful citizen. And 
until this duty has been performed, and the true character 
of the offender is known, no judgment can be formed as to 
how long the restraint should continue in order to make the 
discipline effectual, so that a restoration to liberty will be safe 
to society or just to the offender. It is obvious that with 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. Y gg 

our penitentiary system and our criminal laws and juris- 
prudence as they now exist, the performance of this duty is 
impossible. The spirit of punishment which pervades the 
criminal laws for what are known as felonies or penitentiary 
offences, as well as for many minor offences, is vindictive in 
its character and not reformatory, and does not seek, by 
appropriate treatment, to remove the causes which have 
made the individual a criminal. 

All sentences to imprisonment under our statutes, except 
in cases of some juvenile offenders, are required to be for a 
specified period of time, according to the kind and grade of 
the offence ; and when that period has expired the prisoner 
is set at liberty, however desperate his character may be. 
Practically he is considered as having atoned for his crime 
by suffering the punishment inflicted for it, and has a right 
to the opportunity to commit fresh crimes, against which 
society has no protection, however strong the probability 
may be that he will do so. How large a proportion of 
those thus punished repeat the offence afterwards is not 
known, but many of them are returned to the same prison, 
and many others are known to have been punished in other 
prisons for crimes committed in other States or countries. 
The shrewd thief or burglar is most likely to perpetrate his 
offences where he is not known, and if detected and con- 
victed but little if anything can be ascertained in regard to 
his previous character before his sentence is pronounced. 
On being arraigned for sentence, and asked if he has any- 
thing to say why judgment should not be pronounced 
against him, he may appeal for mercy, assume an air of 
innocence, claim that it is his first offence, that he was led 
into it by others while under the influence of liquor, and is 
ready to promise that this shall be the last he will ever 
commit. He has been convicted of a burglary or theft, and, 
so far as the judge knows, his statements may all be true. 
The statute requires that he shall be punished by imprison- 



200 TREATMENT OE CRIME. 

ment in the penitentiary, at hard labor, for a term not ex- 
ceeding five, ten, or fifteen years. The judge is now on 
trial. If he is a man possessing ordinary benevolence and 
conscientiousness, and moderate combativeness, he may be 
inclined to give some credence to the prisoner's story, which 
there has been none to contradict, and fearing lest he should 
make the punishment excessive he gives the prisoner some 
excellent advice, and sentences him to imprisonment for 
perhaps one or two years, and the sheriff or his deputy 
receives his warrant and takes him to the penitentiary, and 
delivers him into the custody of the warden. On his return, 
the officer informs his honor, the judge, that the prisoner 
whom he had dealt so leniently with, and given such 
fatherly counsel, was fully recognized by the officers of the 
prison, who at once saluted him with " Hello, Jake ! got 
back again, have you ?" " Yes," replies Jake, " for a short 
time. The judge wa'n't so hard on me as that other one 
was that sent me here for five years." His name was 
Richard Jackson when last tried. On his former trial it 
was Richard Munson, and when his history is known he is 
found to have been a professional thief and burglar under 
various names. Such cases are not of very unfrequent 
occurrence. The judge has formed the best judgment he 
could from what appeared in evidence on the trial and the 
appearance and deportment of the prisoner in court and 
while in jail awaiting his trial. Many noted criminals are 
known to the police in all the large cities, but not all of 
them. When one has become notorious and is " wanted" 
to answer for some villanous crime, his photograph, if one 
has been secured, with some account of his character and 
history, are sent to such places as he may be likely to visit. 
In such cases the judge may obtain some general informa- 
tion to guide him in pronouncing judgment. But no matter 
how desperate the character of the prisoner may be, nor 
how utterly hopeless his reformation, he can only be com- 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 0I 

pelled to endure the punishment which the law has deter- 
mined to be his due for the specific crime of which he has 
been convicted. If the judge, upon inquiry, becomes satis- 
fied that the prisoner has committed other crimes, and that 
he will be likely to pursue the same desperate course of life 
as soon as he regains his liberty, still he cannot transcend 
the limit fixed by law as due to that particular offence, and 
must leave him to the chances of his committing other 
crimes, without any adequate protection to the community. 
We have in the State of Michigan twenty-eight judicial 
circuits, and thirty-one circuit judges, besides judges of 
municipal courts of criminal jurisdiction. In these courts 
all offences punishable by imprisonment in the State prison 
are adjudicated. These judges are men of high character 
and ability, who probably would not suffer by comparison 
with judges exercising similar powers and jurisdiction in 
any other State of the Union. But they are still men, with 
differing temperaments and experiences, and varying in their 
views and feelings in regard to crimes and punishments. 
Some of them are by nature austere and rigorous, while 
others are sympathetic, so that where one would deem five 
or ten or even fifteen years' imprisonment none too much in 
a given case, another would deem it more just and more 
likely to be beneficial to impose only imprisonment for a 
term of two or three years ; and so the amount of punish- 
ment inflicted for similar offences, under like circumstances, 
varies according to the varying views or tempers of the 
trial judges before whom the adjudication is had, and it is 
scarcely to be supposed that any two of them would pro- 
nounce the same judgment. If it be supposed, then, that 
two years' imprisonment for an offence under given circum- 
stances is all that justice demands, and the offender is re- 
quired to serve a term of five or ten years, it is evident that 
great injustice is done. If, on the other hand, the offence 
justly requires the greater punishment, and a less is in- 



202 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

flicted, justice is not satisfied, and evil may be expected to 
result in either case. This is an infirmity which is inherent 
in our present system of criminal jurisprudence, in which 
punishment is meted out in definite quantities to be fixed by 
the trial judge within certain limitations, and this evil must 
continue so long as definite sentences for crime are required. 
To us this appears as irrational as would be the attempt to 
fix in advance the period during which an insane person 
shall remain under treatment in an asylum, or a person sick 
with some chronic disease remain under the care of a phy- 
sician, and then be discharged without regard to the mental 
or physical condition of the patient. To determine in either 
case the period required for punishment or cure would re- 
quire a prescience not vouchsafed to judges or physicians 
in general. It may be said that if it shall appear to the 
governor of the State at any time that the judgment of the 
court is unjust for any cause, he may interpose in the ex- 
ercise of his executive authority and pardon the offender or 
commute the sentence. This is true in theory, but our 
governors have no power to enlarge the period of im- 
prisonment, however strongly justice may require it, and 
they are not elected with reference to any special fitness for 
the exercise of this power ; and the history of the State 
shows that men have been pardoned by the governor for 
high crimes who were, if possible, more desperate and de- 
termined villains when thus set free than when they were 
sentenced to the State prison for life or a long term of 
years. However conscientious they may be in discharging 
the duties of their high trust, they are liable to mistake the 
proper objects of clemency, and to be deceived and imposed 
upon by interested or misguided parties. 

Again, all punishment for crime is inflicted upon the idea 
of man's moral accountability to society, and of atonement or 
refributioji through suffering, or the visiting of evil upon him 
for the evil he has done to society. The right to punish, if 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 203 

it exists at all, must be based upon this idea. Hence it is a 
maxim of the law that the criminality of the wrongful act 
consists in the evil or felonious intent with which it is done. 
If a wrongful act, however disastrous it may be to others, 
is done by a person who presumably has no moral perception 
of the wrong he is doing, or of its consequences, the law 
will not adjudge him guilty of a crime, nor punish him for 
the act. Hence, if the accused is adjudged so imbecile, or 
idiotic, or insane when the act was done, that he had no 
rational conception of its nature and consequences, or of 
his moral accountability for its perpetration, he is acquitted 
for that reason, as not deserving of punishment. But if 
acquitted by reason of insanity (unsoundness of mind), he 
is not set at liberty if his discharge is considered manifestly 
dangerous to the peace and safety of the community, but is 
placed under such treatment as the nature and circumstances 
of his case require. The duty of the State in such a case 
to seek the cure of the unfortunate individual by the use of 
appropriate treatment, and to restrain and control him until 
his liberation becomes safe to others, is fully recognized ; 
and if, as we assume, all crime ought to be .treated as a dis- 
ease, or as caused by disease, there is no difficulty in apply- 
ing that treatment which has been explained, and denomi- 
nated by Mr. Combe " the moral system," to every case of 
crime. 

For a great variety of minor offences the punishment 
provided by our criminal code is a fine not exceeding a 
certain amount, or imprisonment in a county jail or in a 
house of correction for a few days or months. These petty 
crimes and misdemeanors are triable in the courts of justices 
of the peace and police courts, and the daily grist (as it is 
sometimes called) ground out in our large cities is enormous. 
Drunkenness, assault and battery, or other disorderly con- 
duct, and petty larceny, are the principal offences our police 
courts have to deal with, and in many instances the number 



204 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



of times the same individual has been adjudged guilty can- 
not be counted " on fingers and toes." Every morning (ex- 
cept Sundays) the unsavory procession is brought in, and 
the cases are disposed of in a very summary manner, and 
the punishment announced without the least hesitation and 
with little ceremony. Thomas is convicted of having been 
drunk and disorderly, and, being understood to be able to 
do so, is adjudged to pay a fine of one dollar and costs 
amounting to fifteen dollars and thirty cents. Maria 
Therese, as she calls herself, is notoriously a depraved 
creature, and is convicted for the fiftieth time of being dis- 
orderly, and everybody knows that she intends to continue 
in her vile course of life. She is not old, and still has some 
personal attractions, and therefore has friends. She, or her 
friends for her, can pay another fine of fifteen dollars and 
costs, and the fine is imposed and paid, and she goes on her 
way. One miserable wretch has no money or friends, but 
gets his living by pilfering small amounts, and he is sen- 
tenced to imprisonment for thirty days. And thus these 
wretched children of iniquity are all disposed of. Those 
who have paid their fines have purchased their freedom and 
the opportunity to commit fresh offences, with perhaps the 
additional incentive to try to indemnify themselves for what 
has been taken from them. 

That this is not an overdrawn picture all who are ac- 
quainted with police affairs can testify. Here we have pun- 
ishment, pure and simple, with no other element in it but 
meanness. Had some one obtained the money that Thomas 
was compelled to pay as a fine and costs by false tokens or 
pretences, he would have been guilty of a felony, but the 
money is taken from him without any pretence of rendering 
the least benefit to him on account of it, under the sanction 
of the law. The effects of the debauch which led to his 
arrest were visited upon him by the operation of a natural 
law, and the moral consequences of his acts are determined 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 



205 



by an appeal to his conscience, and are not cancelled by fine 
or imprisonment. 

Of the hundreds of thousands belonging to the classes 
of offenders above referred to, all or nearly all require treat- 
ment at the hands of the State or community. They are 
diseased and need cure; they are immoral and debased be- 
cause of circumstances that naturally lead to such conditions, 
under the operation of a law of human nature, whereby 
their character and conduct could be predicted beforehand 
with almost unerring certainty. Those who know their 
parentage and surroundings in childhood and youth antici- 
pated and foretold what their destiny would be, unless ade- 
quate means were provided to avert it. They have grown 
up under conditions which made them the enemies of society, 
— a sort of Ishmaelites whose hands are against every man, 
and every man's hand is against them. On this subject the 
Rev. R. W. Hill, in a paper read before the National Con- 
ference of Charities and Corrections in 1887, under the 
quaint title of " The Children of Shinbone Alley," says, 
" Heredity as surely dooms the progeny of the depraved as 
water runs down hill. It requires an outside force to save 
them, and a power, too, greater and more kindly than the 
public interest which usually concerns itself with the deni- 
zens of the haunts of vice. It is a hard saying to utter, 
that children are criminals by fate ; and yet with such ante- 
cedents and with such cruel surroundings the birth of chil- 
dren is the prophecy of crime for the future. In years hence, 
when these young dwellers in the ' Shinbone Alleys' of the 
country shall have grown accustomed, as they will be, to 
an atmosphere of crime, there is nothing to be expected 
save a series of crimes of which they are to be the perpe- 
trators. It is time for society to awake to the fact that such 
places are hot-beds of vice, where each generation will prove 
worse than the one that preceded it." (Report, p. 233.) They 
are ignorant, and need instruction and moral enlightenment, 

18 



4 



206 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

and thousands of them are poor and destitute, and need the 
aid and guidance of those who are wiser and more prosper- 
ous to raise them out of the filth and pollution which sur- 
round and infect them, into a purer atmosphere and a happier 
condition of life. The sins of many generations have been 
visited upon them, and will fall with added force upon their 
posterity if no preventive is applied. Figuratively speaking, 
they are moral lepers, and constitute a festering sore upon 
the body politic, affecting every fibre and muscle, and in- 
fusing a baleful influence through the whole social fabric. 
But they are the children of the State, and are what society 
has made them, or permitted them to be. 

Some of the prison notes made by Mr. Horsley while 
chaplain of Clerkenwell prison, London, in August, 1885, 
are very suggestive. One statement in particular is worth 
transcribing, as indicating how farcical is the repetition of 
convictions for small offences. Under date of August 1, he 
says, " I go in the afternoon to a workhouse infirmary, to 
visit poor Annie P. When about a year ago the magistrate 
reproved her for having been four hundred times convicted, 
she was very angry, for she was sure it was not much more 
than three hundred times that she had been taken up for 
drunkenness or offences arising out of it." And the kind- 
hearted chaplain expressed his thanks that poor Annie will 
die sober and penitent after so many convictions. Under 
date of August 2, speaking of an old Brahmin who had 
been arrested for causing a disturbance, Mr. H. says, " He 
reminds me of another old Indian who eventually died in 
prison, his chief knowledge of English being ' Ninety-shix 
time,' he having been repeatedly convicted of begging." 

Hon. John J. Wheeler, a member of the Michigan Board 
of Corrections and Charities, in a paper on indeterminate 
sentences, referring to convictions in the criminal courts of 
cities, and the prisons in which persons are confined for 
small crimes and misdemeanors, says, " The occupants are 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 oy 

mostly men and women sent to prison or jail for a few days 
or weeks, time after time. By the time they get sober, out 
they go, to be back again before the week is up. Those 
women who are most capable of reformation have their fines 
paid. Tramps and vagabonds of all kinds, too lazy to work, 
men and women, the victims of rum, are all treated alike, 
with no chance of reform. Criminals spend more than half 
their lives in prison and are not reformed. The whole 
system is wrong." In our American cities the records of 
police courts will probably show hundreds and perhaps 
thousands of cases where repetition of convictions, followed 
by fines or short periods of imprisonment in jails, extend 
from two or three to fifty and a hundred times, at large ex- 
pense to the tax-payers, but without any benefit either to the 
public or the individual. 

Another great evil under our present system, which bases 
the right of the State to punish upon the moral account- 
ability of the wrong-doer, grows out of the exceeding diffi- 
culty, in many cases, of determining whether or not the ac- 
cused was morally responsible for his acts at the time the 
alleged crime occurred. In prosecutions for homicide, and 
for assaults with intent to commit murder, and for arson, 
one of the most common defences set up is that of insanity. 
The practical difficulties involved in the determination of 
the issue in such cases are best understood by those who 
have had the largest experience in criminal jurisprudence. 
There are cases so marked and clear that no doubt can exist 
in regard to the alleged insanity, but there are infinite de- 
grees and shades of mental weakness or unsoundness of 
mind which affect the actions and conduct of men, that no 
balance can weigh nor rule measure, and to which no satis- 
factory test of moral accountability can be applied. 

Mr. Bishop, in his excellent work on crime, remarks on 
this subject as follows : " It should also be remembered that 
the phases and manifestations of insanity are in number 



208 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

little less than infinite. No reason indeed appears why they 
may not be even more numerous, certainly more difficult to 
be understood, than the qualities and phenomena of sound 
minds ; and our assurance may well be humbled when we 
reflect that what is called the learned world, much more the 
mass of humanity, still gropes darkly on the borders of 
moral and intellectual science." 

After noticing some of the various forms of insanity and 
the attempts which have been made to define it by varying 
tests, Mr. Bishop further remarks, " This subject of insanity 
is, in its practical legal aspects, attended with great diffi- 
culties. Men of sane minds know themselves but imper- 
fectly, and they comprehend others less than themselves ; 
nor is there language to convey, in exact form, even the 
little knowledge we possess of the sane mind. When, 
therefore, we undertake to investigate the phenomena of 
insanity, to discuss them, and to deduce from the principles 
of the law the legal rules to govern them, we are embarrassed 
with difficulties which should make us cautious, and restrain 
us from any extensive laying down of doctrines for unseen 
future cases." And he adds further, that "Judges, counsel, 
and juries cannot proceed too carefully in their investiga- 
tion of cases of alleged insanity ;" from which the reader 
will infer, as the fact undoubtedly is, that in a large propor- 
tion, if not in most of the cases where this defence is set up, 
the verdict is as likely to be false as true. In a recently 
published and very valuable work on insanity, by Dr. T. R. 
Buckham, the careful perusal of which we earnestly com- 
mend to our law-makers, the author, referring to the uncer- 
tainty of verdicts in insanity cases, says, " That a feeling of 
profound and general distrust prevails with reference to legal 
decisions in all cases in which insanity is an element of the 
trial, is an under-statement of the fact," and refers to the 
statement of Dr. Maudsley, who says, " It is notorious that 
the acquittal or conviction of a prisoner, when insanity is 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 0g 

alleged, is a matter of chance. Were the issue to be decided 
by tossing up a shilling, instead of by the grave procedure 
of a trial in court, it could hardly be more uncertain. The 
less insane person sometimes escapes, while the more insane 
is sometimes hanged ; one man laboring under one form of 
derangement is acquitted at one trial, while another having 
an exactly similar form of derangement is convicted at 
another trial." Other distinguished medico-forensic writers 
express the same views, and the question, " Is not the 
travesty of justice in this class of cases shocking?" pro- 
pounded by Dr. Buckham, can admit of but one answer. 
The folly, not to say absurdity, of calling in physicians who 
have had no special training to fit them to be judges in such 
matters, to testify upon the trial as experts, is forcibly pointed 
out and illustrated, and a safe, rational, and practical mode 
of securing the most competent and reliable expert testimony 
in these cases is indicated, and it is made very plain that if 
the proposed plan were adopted there need be no more un- 
certainty in determining the question of sanity or insanity 
than there is in determining the guilt or innocence in ordi- 
nary cases. Under the system proposed the experts would 
be officers of the State, and composed of men of the largest 
experience in the treatment of insanity in all its various 
forms, and they would, in each case, practically determine 
the question of moral accountability for the court and jury. 
Dr. Buckham discusses the different theories in regard to 
the nature and causes of insanity, and concludes that the 
mind itself is incapable of disease, and offers the following 
as the true definition of insanity : " A diseased or disordered 
condition, or malformation, of the physical organs through 
which the mind receives impressions, or manifests its opera- 
tions, by whieh the will and judgment are impaired, and the 
conduct rendered irrational!' And as a corollary he con- 
cludes that, " Insanity being the result of physical disease, it 
is a matter of fact to be determined by medical experts, not 
o 18* 



210 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



a matter of law to be decided by legal tests and maxims." 
The facts and arguments adduced seem to be very con- 
vincing in favor of this theory, which is denominated the 
" physical media theory," in contradistinction to the " meta- 
physical" or " psychical" and the " somatic" or " material- 
istic" hypothesis. 

In regard to the distinction between the " physical media 
theory" and the " metaphysical theory" he says, " The 
' physical media theory,' like the ' metaphysical theory,' re- 
gards the mind as a distinct, intangible, incorporal entity, 
not dependent upon the body for its existence ; but, unlike 
the ' metaphysical theory,' it recognizes the most intimate 
relations between mind and body, and holds that in this life 
the mind is wholly dependent for the manifestations of its 
operations on certain organs of the body which we desig- 
nate physical media." 

Assuming as we do the correctness of these conclusions, 
and the analogy of the " physical media theory" to our 
theory of crime is perfect, and most forcibly suggests the 
perfect analogy which ought to exist in the treatment of 
both. If " the mind in this life is wholly dependent for the 
manifestations of its operations on certain organs of the 
body, which we designate physical media," and if crime of 
necessity involves an operation of the mind, as we know it 
does, is it not as certain that the criminal act proceeds from 
a diseased or disordered condition or malformation of the 
physical organs through which the mind receives impres- 
sions, or manifests its operations, as that insanity results from 
the same cause? In the latter case the will and judgment 
are said to be impaired and the conduct rendered irrational, 
and criminality is not therefore imputed, because of the ex- 
tent to which the will and judgment are impaired ; but if the 
diseased or disordered condition or malformation of the 
physical organs impel to the commission of crime so 
strongly as to force the consent of the will, and overpower 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 II 

the judgment, and yet do not so far destroy the understanding 
as to prevent the actor from distinguishing what is right 
and what is wrong, he is adjudged a criminal. The intent 
to do wrong distinguishes the character or quality of the 
act from the unconscious, involuntary wrong of an insane 
man, and indicates a difference in the kind or degree of the 
malformation or disorder from which the wrong proceeded, 
and one which requires a different mode of treatment But 
what ground have we to assume that one condition proceeds 
from disease and the other does not ? And why should not 
the purpose of the treatment in both cases be the same, — 
that is to say, the cure of the disease, and the protection of 
society ? 

Questions of the greatest import to society have arisen 
from time to time in the history of criminal procedure, 
which have greatly puzzled jurists and moralists, but which, 
upon the theory that all crime proceeds from disease or mal- 
formation of some of the physical organs through which 
the mind manifests its operations, as we have assumed that 
it does, are relieved of all difficulty in their solution. A few 
years ago a boy in Massachusetts, named Jesse Pomeroy, 
put to death small children, and seemed to derive the 
greatest delight from torturing them, and it could not be 
perceived that he had any consciousness that it was wrong, 
although he knew what he was doing. Having no con- 
ciousness that it was wrong, and being incapable of under- 
standing that he was violating any law, he could not be 
punished as for a crime, and the question arose, and was 
largely discussed at the time, whether the State had any 
right to restrain or punish where there was no moral ac- 
countability. If the right of the State to interfere rested 
upon the principle of moral accountability, there could be 
no interference by the State, but if it rests upon the neces- 
sity of protection to the community against the most re- 
volting evils, the case is relieved of all difficulty. Pomeroy 



212 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

had developed homicidal mania, evidenced by the destruc- 
tion of human lives. Benevolence and justice towards the 
boy demanded that he should be restrained and controlled, 
and the moral faculties which were deficient developed and 
cultivated as far as practicable, and the duty of the State, 
both to him and to society, required that this should be 
done. 

The case of Freeman, who slew his own child under the 
delusion that if he exhibited his faith and devotion to God 
by seeking the sacrifice of his child, He would in some 
marvellous way interfere to stay his hand, or place a ram or 
some other subject of sacrifice in its place and save his child, 
as Isaac was saved when offered as a sacrifice by Abraham, 
his father, is fresh in the recollection of all. Supposing 
Freeman to have been entirely honest in his belief that he 
had been called upon by his Creator to furnish such a test 
of his faith and devotion, and of God's power to interpose 
and thus verify the truth of biblical history, and that he 
was impelled by no other motive, then he had not only not 
intended any wrong, but was in the performance of what he 
regarded as the highest and most sacred religious duty, that 
of yielding obedience to God's command. When this de- 
lusion was dispelled, and the terrible consequences of his 
rash act were before him, who could desire to add anything 
to his punishment ? Yet if his mental condition was such 
that he would be likely to commit other homicides or great 
wrongs, the necessity for restraint and proper treatment 
would be apparent, and the right and duty of the State to 
see that it was applied would be clear. 

There are other infirmities in our criminal laws and their 
administration worthy of attention, but which it would not, 
perhaps, be profitable to discuss in detail here. The modes 
of treatment which we shall hereafter point out will, in our 
judgment, obviate most of the objectionable features of our 
present system, and we hope may commend themselves to 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 I$ 

the favorable consideration of legislators and philanthropists. 
There is, however, one mode of punishment still practised 
in most States and civilized countries, to which we have be- 
fore referred, and which to us appears so barbarous and in- 
human, and injurious in its effects upon the community, as 
to demand our most emphatic protest against its continu- 
ance. We allude to the punishment of death, or capital 
punishment for crime. The right of an individual, whether 
in a state of nature or as a member of society, to take the 
life of another is recognized only in cases where it is abso- 
lutely necessary in defence of life, or to prevent some great 
wrong which is attempted to be committed by force. Ac- 
cording to the theoiy of all enlightened writers upon gov- 
ernment, and which has been accepted as true, in the 
transition from a state of nature to a social state and an 
authoritative government, men surrendered up a portion of 
their natural rights to the body politic, in order that the 
just rights of all might be protected by the government 
thus constituted. Upon this theory, the government could 
exercise no power except such as it acquired by such 
surrender. Individuals could not surrender or invest the 
government with any rights which they did not possess in a 
state of nature. Hence they could never surrender to, or 
vest in the body politic the right to take the life of an in- 
dividual, except in self-defence. In a civilized state, with 
ample means of protecting itself and its citizens by impris- 
oning the offender for life, there can be no necessity, and 
consequently no rightful authority in the government to 
pronounce the penalty of death upon any of its citizens. 
When Moses ruled the Israelites, and made the laws for 
their government, they had no prisons for securing offenders, 
nor any other means of protection against the acts of the 
violent and desperate, and hence the destruction of life for 
great crimes may be considered as having been necessary 
upon the principle of self-defence, and therefore justifiable. 



214 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



But the effect of this practice was to so cheapen human life 
in the estimation of that people, that they stoned to death 
those who were guilty of what we regard as very trivial or 
venial offences, even for gathering a few sticks upon the 
Sabbath day. Those, therefore, who seek to justify capital 
punishment, because it was denounced by the Mosaic law, 
for the shedding of man's blood, seem to forget the different 
circumstances of that people from our own, and also to forget 
that Jesus, whose authority no Christian will dare dispute, 
abolished the law of retribution, and taught a doctrine 
entirely inconsistent with it. 

The abolition of public executions is in itself a concession 
that the example is pernicious, and does not deter from the 
commission of crime. The idea of punishment by way of 
example being abandoned, capital punishment assumes the 
character of gratuitous and wanton cruelty, without justifi- 
cation or excuse. 

If there are any who still believe that life is more safe in 
those States where the murderer is put to death for his 
crime, a study of the effects of its abolition ought, it would 
seem, to be sufficient to correct the error. 

In Rhode Island, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where capital 
punishment was abolished from twenty-five to fifty years 
ago, human life has been as secure as in any other States of 
the Union, and much more so than in some of them where 
the death penalty is in force ; and during the forty years 
since imprisonment for life was substituted for hanging in 
case of murder in Michigan, but one case of murder by 
lynching under mob law has come to our knowledge. In 
Switzerland, that model and most peaceful republic of the 
Old World, capital punishment has existed as a legal en- 
actment in but eight of the twenty-five Cantons since 
1879; and in Belgium, Russia, Bavaria, Denmark, and 
Sweden, though not abolished by law, its enforcement has 
practically ceased. So in France, where in one year there 



\ 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 2 \$ 

were one hundred and twenty-six convictions for murder, 
and but four executions, and in Italy, where a similar pro- 
portion of executions to convictions is found, the same evi- 
dence of the decadence of this mistaken policy is found. 
In Austria also capital punishments have for many years 
been exceeding rare. In the Kingdom of the Netherlands 
the death penalty was abolished in 1 870, and in 1881, when 
an effort was made by a minority of the Chamber to re-enact 
the penalty, the Minister of Justice stated that " the convic- 
tions for crime which merited death, according to the law in 
force up to that time, in the ten years immediately following 
the abolition of capital punishment, were fifty-seven in 
number, while the number of those condemned to death in 
the ten years immediately preceding was eighty-two." " In 
1867," says Mr. Sparhawk (late consul at Zanzibar), "the 
death penalty was abolished in Portugal. It was not until 
the third year after that any appreciable change occurred, 
and since then, year by year, murders have decreased in 
number till to-day they are not more than half of what they 
were, and are far below that of other countries, making 
allowance for difference in population." 

A new law has since been enacted, by which murderers 
are sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary, and are 
not employed upon public works, but are given a religious 
and industrial education ; and at the expiration of the sen- 
tence they go free, with two-thirds of the proceeds of their 
labor to start life anew. " It is asserted," says Mr. S., " that 
the instance is rare where one of these ever appears in Court 
again charged with any crime." 

If any other evidence than we have already advanced 
were necessary to prove that capital punishment does not 
deter men from committing capital crimes, but rather tends 
to incite to such crimes, it may be found in ihe following 
facts quoted in the article above referred to. M" A Paris ex- 
ecutioner, during his term of office, hung tw$ity murderers, 



2I 6 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

who, as he said, had been constant attendants at his gibbet- 
ing matinees. Rev. Mr. Roberts, of England, conversed 
with one hundred and sixty-seven convicts under sentence 
of death, all of whom but three had witnessed executions." 

Mr. Talbuck, secretary of the Howard Association, relates 
that " It has often been noticed that executions have been 
immediately followed by an unusual ' crop' of murderers. 
For example, in 1870, shortly after the execution of Trop- 
mann at Paris for a peculiarly atrocious murder, several 
similar cases of wholesale slaughter occurred, including the 
sevenfold murder at Uxbridge. Similarly, in 1867, the ex- 
ecution of three Fenians at Manchester was followed within 
three weeks by the abominable Fenian explosion at Clerken- 
well, which sacrificed many lives. When men were hung 
up by the dozen for forging one-pound Bank of England 
notes, the crime did not diminish — it increased ; though 
many were cut off at Old Baily Sessions, many escaped all 
punishment through the humane repugnance of juries to 
send them in shoals to the scaffold." 

The execution of three Anarchists in Chicago, a few 
months ago, aroused a feeling among those who sympa- 
thized with them in their opinions that called forth expres- 
sions of the most ferocious desire for vengeance against those 
who participated in the trial and in executing the law, and 
resulted in a deliberate plan for destroying the lives of those 
most prominently connected with the trial, and perhaps a 
wholesale destruction of other lives most shocking to con- 
template. Had the sentences of the three that were hung 
been commuted to imprisonment for life, and had the law 
only authorized such imprisonment, such a malignant re- 
vengeful feeling would not in all probability have been 
engendered. " The supposition that capital punishment 
deters men from homicidal crime," says Mr. Griffin, " is ap- 
parently founded upon a misconception of human nature." 
While the righteous regard human life as the most sacred 



/ 



SOME OF THE EVILS OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM. 



217 



of all things, and are shocked at the thought of its lawless 
destruction, and grieved when any supposed necessity exists 
for its extinction, the man with murderous intent, or who is 
capable of entertaining such intent, sees in the punishment 
by the penalty of death only an example of rendering evil 
for evil under the sanction of a law which is supposed to 
accord with the sentiment of the people who constitute the 
State. If it is right for the State to act upon the principle 
of rendering evil for evil, why should not he act upon the 
same principle ? If he is capable of contemplating the de 
struction of a human life by his own hand, without such a 
feeling of horror as to deter him from committing so enor- 
mous a crime, it is not to be supposed that the decapitation 
or strangling of a malefactor by the authority of the State 
will have any salutary effect upon him. On the contrary, as 
the facts of history clearly show, the only effect such an ex- 
ample has upon this class of men, is to familiarize in them 
the homicidal thought, and incite them to the commission 
of murderous deeds. 

Sir Wm. Blackstone in his Commentaries on the laws of 
England (a.d. 1765), in treating of capital punishment and its 
effects as a means of diminishing crime, asks, " Was the vast 
territory of all the Russias worse regulated under the late 
Empress Elizabeth than under her more sanguinary predeces- 
sors ? Is it now under Catherine II. less civilized, less social, 
less secure ?" " And yet," he says, " we are assured that 
neither of these illustrious princesses have, throughout their 
whole administration, inflicted the penalty of death ; and the 
latter has, upon full persuasion of its being useless, nay, even 
pernicious, given orders for abolishing it entirely throughout 
her extensive dominions." ..." But indeed were capital pun- 
ishments proved by experience to be a sure and effectual rem- 
edy (says the learned commentator), that would not prove the 
necessity (upon which the justice and propriety depend) of 
inflicting them upon all occasions when other remedies fail." 
k 19 



2i8 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



CHAPTER V. 

OF THE PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF PERSONS 
CONVICTED OF CRIME. 

Having attempted to point out the injustice and ineffi- 
ciency of definite sentences for crime under our present 
system, the alternative suggested is that of a system of in- 
definite sentences, with or without some maximum limit of 
time. This is not a new idea in theory, nor a new thing in 
practice, and we are prepared to say, from reliable informa- 
tion on this subject, that wherever this system has been 
adopted and intelligently put in operation, the results have 
been in a high degree satisfactory. 

But in order to accomplish the beneficial results which it 
is capable of yielding in diminishing crime by the reforma- 
tion of such offenders as are capable of being reformed, and 
restraining those who cannot be reclaimed, it is an indispen- 
sable prerequisite that suitable prisons or reformatories shall 
be provided with all necessary appliances for the work de- 
signed to be accomplished. The places, their surroundings 
and appointments, and the teachers and managers must all 
be adapted to the ends designed to be accomplished. That 
our county jails are adapted to the purposes designed, no 
one acquainted with the subject will assume. From what 
we have said, and quoted from the opinions of those most 
competent to judge, it is evident that they are not only unfit 
places for criminals under sentence, but that most if not all 
of them are nurseries of crime. If properly constructed, 
with suitable sanitary arrangements, and kept in a cleanly 
condition, and with arrangements for separating the sexes, 
and those of the same sex who ought not to be allowed to 
associate together, they are the proper and most convenient 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



2IQ 



places for detaining persons suspected of crime, and await- 
ing trial or sentence. Such prisoners cannot be subjected 
to the discipline necessary in the treatment of convicts, nor 
required to perform manual labor, either for their own or 
the public benefit. The local jails in England are not used 
at all as places of punishment, but only of detention while 
the prisoner is awaiting trial or sentence. What then shall 
be done with such as are convicted of minor offences, and 
need the discipline of a prison or reformatory ? The answer 
which seems to us the most appropriate to this inquiry is, 
Let the State provide for the construction of district prisons 
or reformatories, under the exclusive control of the State 
and its agents and officers. Far this purpose the State may 
be divided into so many districts as shall be deemed neces- 
sary, and the institutions be located at the most convenient 
and suitable points in each district. Erect substantial and 
convenient, but inexpensive, buildings, with arrangements 
for the proper classification of the inmates, for their employ- 
ment in useful labor, and the cultivation of their mental and 
moral faculties, as a means of promoting reformation ; and 
this should be the main purpose and aim of the State in the . 
management of these institutions, and pecuniary profits a 
minor consideration. In a paper on the county jails read 
by Hon. Levi Barbour at a convention of the Board of 
Corrections and Charities of Michigan in 1884, in which 
the evils of our present jail system are graphically described, 
he earnestly recommends that they be made houses of de- 
tention only where persons charged with crime can be de- 
tained until trial, and that all prisoners detained therein be 
entirely isolated from each other; and that district work- 
houses shall be provided under State control, to which all 
prisoners convicted of petty offences shall be sent on con- 
viction and kept at hard labor. He also recommends that 
the terms of all jailers, superintendents of workhouses, and 
wardens of prisons shall continue during good behavior 



220 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

and efficiency ; and that all such institutions shall be re- 
moved from the hands of politicians and party influence ; 
and in our opinion the importance of these proposed changes 
cannot be too strongly urged upon the attention of the people, 
and especially of our legislators. 

Under a judicious classification of the prisoners, the cot- 
tage or family system in the district prisons or reformatories 
should, we think, be a prominent feature of the institution, 
as affording a means of inspiring self-respect and manliness 
of character. 

The kinds of labor carried on at these reformatories may 
be various, but of course should be such as are best calcu- 
lated to fit the operators for obtaining an honest living when 
restored to their freedom. The grounds should be so ex- 
tensive that market gardening, perhaps general farming to 
some extent, with horticulture and floriculture, may be pur- 
sued by such of the prisoners as prove themselves worthy 
to be trusted with sufficient freedom for that purpose, and 
as are adapted to such pursuits. Various mechanical trades 
should be taught and carried on, and all who are capable of 
doing so should be required to perform a reasonable amount 
of labor daily, as well for the physical and moral improve- 
ment of the prisoner as for contributing to the expenses of 
their support and instruction. Since the practicability of 
reforming the younger classes of offenders has come to be 
admitted and has been demonstrated by experiments, and the 
interest and duty of the State to provide the means of such 
reformation has been recognized and acted upon by the leg- 
islatures of several of the States, reformatory institutions 
have been established for the accomplishment of this most 
humane and beneficent purpose. An inspection of these 
institutions and a careful inquiry into their management 
and methods of procedure will afford the best means of 
gaining the necessary information in regard to the most 
suitable buildings, their arrangement with reference to the 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



221 



objects to be attained, and the details of their management, 
to enable the agents of the State to devise and construct, 
with such variations as may be required to adapt them to 
the ends to be secured, suitable and convenient structures 
for all the reformatory institutions that may be required. 
A fact in reference to the institution of separate prisons for 
juvenile offenders is worthy of especial note, as showing 
the vast progress which has been made towards the adoption 
of the " Moral System" in the treatment of this class of 
criminals. It is that when first established they were in 
every respect prisons, with high walls, and bars and bolts 
and prison cells, and guards to prevent escape. The youth- 
ful wrong-doers were assumed to be desperately wicked, and 
were punished accordingly. But when the idea dawned 
upon the minds of those who had charge of them, that the 
boys might be reformed and made good citizens by moral 
means, all was soon changed. The prison walls were torn 
down, bolts and bars and cells dispensed with, and the 
prison turned into a school for educating and training them 
for usefulness. One of the most conspicuous examples of 
the beneficent effects of this radical change occurred at 
Rauen Haus, near Hamburg, of which the Rev. Calvin E. 
Stowe some years ago gave the following account : 

" Hamburg is the largest commercial city in Germany, 
and its population is extremely crowded. Though it is 
highly distinguished for its benevolent institutions, and for 
the hospitality and integrity of its citizens, yet the very cir- 
cumstances in which it is placed produce among the lowest 
class of its population habits of degradation and beastliness 
of which we have few examples on this side of the Atlantic. 
The children, therefore, received into this institution are of 
the very worst and most hopeless character. Not only are 
their minds most thoroughly depraved, but their very senses 
and bodily organizations seem to partake of the vicious- 
ness and degradation of their hearts. Their appetites are 

19* 



222 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

so perverted that sometimes the most loathsome and dis- 
gusting substances are preferred to wholesome food. The 
superintendent, Mr. Wichern, states that, though plentifully- 
supplied with provisions, yet, when first received, some of 
them will steal and eat rancid grease that has been laid 
aside for the purpose of greasing shoes,. and even catch 
May-bugs and devour them ; and it was with the utmost 
difficulty that those disgusting habits were broken up." 

" The place was a prison," says Dr. Buchanan in " The 
New Education," " when he took it. He threw down the 
high walls, and took away the bars and bolts. He made the 
children love him, and he converted them into estimable 
characters." Horace Mann says of this institution, " The 
effect attested the almost omnipotent power of generosity 
and affection. Children from seven or eight to fifteen or 
sixteen years of age, in many of whom early and loath- 
some vices had nearly obliterated the stamp of humanity, 
were transformed, not only into useful members of society, 
but into characters that endeared themselves to all within 
the sphere of their acquaintance. The children were told 
at the beginnnig that labor was the price of living, and that 
they must earn their own bread. . . . Charity had supplied 
the home to which they were invited — their own industry 
must do the rest." At the great Hamburg fire, it is said 
that these boys acted like heroes, but refused all compensa- 
tion, and after the fire gave up their provisions and beds to 
the sufferers. At the reformatory farm school of Mettray, 
in France, says Dr. Buchanan, founded by Judge Demitz for 
children who were condemned in Court for their crimes, a 
similar system was pursued, and the number of children 
thoroughly reformed was about eighty-five per cent, of all. 

In England reformatories for youthful offenders have 
been a success. The reformatory farm school at Red Hill, 
in Surrey, takes charge of youths who are convicted of 
crime, or who are the children of felons. They are so 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



223 



1 



successful that they impose no restraint or confinement, and 
their schools are as orderly and well-behaved as the schools 
patronized by the better classes. 

In the American reformatories for juvenile offenders a 
similar method is adopted, and instead of being prisons they 
are schools in which no more restraint is imposed than in 
ordinary schools, and it is very seldom that an escape is 
attempted ; and they afford wonderful examples of what can 
be accomplished by the " Moral System" of treatment. The 
Ohio State Reform School was located on an open farm, 
surrounded by forest, offering every facility for escape. Mr. 
Howe, the manager of the school, related an incident at the 
Prison Reform. Congress, in St. Louis, in 1874, which forci- 
ably illustrates the efficacy of moral power in the manage- 
ment of youthful criminals. He said that on one occasion 
his heart sunk in momentary despair and alarm when, on a 
dark night, the boys, having just come from the chapel, 
started off with a sudden impulse for the woods, and left 
him alone to meditate on disappointments. It was not long, 
however, after their voices had been lost, before he heard 
them again emerging from the forest with the cry, " We've 
got him ! we've got him !" A rough young convict, recently 
arrived, thought the dark night offered a fine opportunity for 
escape, and started off at full speed. His comrades pursued 
and captured him, and brought him back. Such was the 
general sentiment of the school that the boys would not 
favor or tolerate running away. In this institution none are 
received but youths convicted of crime. 

It is -stated that "Since the establishment of this reform 
school in 1858, about two thousand of these criminal youths 
have been received, and all but a very small percentage have 
been restored to virtue, having earned an honorable discharge 
by good deportment for a sufficient length of time to satisfy 
their teachers that they are really reformed." 

This school occupied nearly twelve hundred acres of 



224 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



elevated hilly land, with buildings capable of accommo- 
dating about five hundred boys, — a main building one hun- 
dred and sixty-one feet long, eight family buildings, four 
large shop buildings, a chapel, barns, and other buildings. V 

" In this healthy and pleasant home," says Dr. Buchanan, 
" they are received and managed with unwearied kindness 
and love, and carried through a course of moral instruction 
perhaps the most complete and efficient that has ever been 
successfully applied on so large a scale. If there is in our 
country any better system of intellectual, moral, and practical 
education happily combined, I am not aware of it. So per- 
fect is the system that, although they receive so many young 
criminals from jails, they have no jail, no prison walls, no 
bolted gates, but occupy an open farm in the forest, where 
the boys are as free as in any country academy, and are 
often sent to the village or the mill without any guards ; 
and there are fewer escapes than from other institutions 
where boys are kept strictly as prisoners within high walls 
and bolted doors." 

In the year 1855 the Legislature of Michigan provided 
for the establishment of a " House of Correction for Juvenile 
Offenders, including both sexes," which was declared to be 
for the instruction and reform of juvenile offenders, and 
entirely disconnected with the State penitentiary. A board 
of control of this institution was provided for, and it was to 
be located at or near Lansing, providing that a suitable 
piece of land, of not less than twenty acres, should be 
donated for that purpose. The land was donated, and the 
institution located near Lansing, and prison buildings were 
erected as required by the act of the legislature. The 
original act contemplated the confinement in this institution 
of all who at the time of their conviction should be under 
the age of fifteen years, and such others so convicted be- 
tween the ages of fifteen and twenty years as the courts 
pronouncing sentence should deem fit subjects therefor, for 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



225 



the term of their imprisonment, to be designated in their 
sentence, not exceeding the limitation of imprisonment pre- 
scribed by law. The board of control was authorized to 
bind any such offenders to any suitable person residing 
within the State who would engage to instruct such offender 
in some proper art or trade, when such offender should be 
so far reformed as to justify his or her discharge. 

In 1857 the legislature made some amendments to the 
former act, one of which made it the duty of the board of 
control to " prepare and carefully digest and mature a system 
of government for said house of correction for juvenile of- 
fenders, embracing all such rules, regulations, and general 
laws as may be necessary for preserving order, for enforcing 
discipline, for imparting instruction, for preserving health, 
and generally for the proper physical, intellectual, and moral 
training of the offenders ;" and for the purpose of enabling 
them to mature such system of government and discipline, 
the board was given power to authorize one of their number 
to visit similar institutions then in operation, and of the best 
repute ; to acquire an insight into the principles and practical 
working of the model system thus selected, for the informa- 
tion and benefit of said board. The subsequent action of 
the legislature, and of the board of control, attest the wis- 
dom of these provisions. In 1879 the name of the institu- 
tion was changed to that of " Reform School." 

In 1 86 1 it was made a school for boys only between the 
ages of seven and sixteen years who were convicted of any 
offence punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, except- 
ing such as were punishable for life. At the present time 
only boys over ten and under sixteen years of age are re- 
ceived, and those between these ages are sentenced, on con- 
viction, to the reform school until they respectively reach 
the age of eighteen years, or until discharged by law. The 
board of control may place any of the boys of the school in 
the care of any resident of the State who is the head of a 
P 



226 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

family and of good moral character, on such conditions and 
with such stipulations as it may establish ; but no boy can 
be placed in the care of any person engaged in the sale of 
intoxicating drinks, or who is in the habit of getting drunk. 
If any boy sentenced to the reform school is deemed by the 
board to be an improper subject for its care and manage- 
ment, or is found to be incorrigible, or who ought from any 
cause to be returned from said school, it may return such 
boy to the place from whence he came, to be dealt with as 
if he had not been sent to said school. The board may, 
when it deems it expedient, give any of the boys leave of 
absence in writing, with conditions therein expressed, for a 
limited period, or during good behavior; and in case of 
misconduct or other satisfactory reasons, they may be re- 
claimed and returned to the school without other trial or 
process of law. The board also has power to return any 
boy to his parents or guardian, on sufficient surety being 
given for the good behavior and care of such boy. 

This institution was used as a prison for a few years only, 
when " all bars and bolts, cells and whips" were abandoned. 
" No unsightly fence shuts away the beautiful world with- 
out, as the love of home keeps our boys within its shelter- 
ing arms. The boys are generally contented," says the 
board of control, " and realize to a great degree the fact 
that the Reform School supplies for them a real need, and 
furnishes for most of them a better home than they had 
been accustomed to before their admittance here." 

At the conference of county agents of the Board of Cor- 
rections and Charities, in December, 1885, Mr. Gower, the 
superintendent, made a statement in regard to this institu- 
tion, in which he said, " The reform school is about 
twenty-eight years old, and was originally established as a 
' House of Correction for Juvenile Offenders,' — a boy's prison 
with all the adornments of a full-fledged penal institution. 
The character of the institution has been much changed during 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 22 ^ 

the past ten years, and we believe greatly to the advantage 
of those committed to its care. Most of our boys are now 
in cottages, where there is an entire absence of anything to 
suggest that the institution is at all penal in its character, 
and where, as far as possible, it is intended that the boys 
shall have the surroundings, comforts, discipline, and in- 
struction of a good home. In each of these cottages we 
have fifty boys under the care of a man and his wife. The 
wife is teacher of the family school, while the husband is 
employed during the day working with the boys upon the 
farm or in the shops. Experience in our own and other in- 
stitutions has taught that boys in an institution can be more 
judiciously trained and educated when divided into families 
than is possible in the ' congregate plan' formerly in vogue 
throughout the country, and still retained in city institutions. 

" We have at present four hundred and fifty boys in the 
school between the ages of ten and eighteen years ; the 
average is about thirteen years and ten months ; the aver- 
age time of remaining in the school is about twenty-two 
months. 

" Our boys have ten hours each day to sleep, four and a 
half hours for school, four and a half for work, and the 
other five hours for meals and recreation. On Sunday we 
have services in the chapel, conducted by some clergyman 
from the city, and a Sunday-school. When the weather will 
allow, many of the boys attend church in town, where they 
are always welcome. 

" The industries of the school are largely those neces- 
sarily and directly connected with the work of the institu- 
tion, — viz., the preparation of food, laundry work, making 
and mending clothes, bedding, and shoes, caring for the build- 
ings and grounds, and work upon the farm. Besides this, 
many of the smaller boys are engaged in chair-caning. 
We hope soon to be able to introduce some mechanical 
industries which will be helpful in enabling us to put our 



228 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

boys upon a self-supporting basis when they leave us. As 
it now is, at least fifty boys each year go out from our tailor- 
shop, shoe-shop, bake-shop and engine-room, well prepared 
to earn a living by the trade they have learned while in the 
school, and as many more go to live with farmers, having 
acquired a taste for that work during their stay with us. 

"During the past three or four years we have released 
many boys on ' leave of absence,' and with the happiest 
results. By this plan we are able to release conditionally 
many boys whom we would not feel warranted in granting 
a full discharge. In case a boy thus released does not do 
well, or is not properly cared for, he can be immediately re- 
turned to the institution. One hundred and twenty-six 
boys have been granted leave of absence during the past 
year, most of whom have gone with farmers and are doing 
well." 

In his report to the Board of Control, in 1884, Mr. Gower 
says, " We are happy to say, not boastingly, but in simple 
justice to the institution, and for the encouragement of 
those who are interested in our work, that, for every in- 
stance brought to our notice where our boys have failed to 
do well after leaving us, we could name at least five who 
are honorable and worthy members of society. 

" It is one of the most pleasing and encouraging experi- 
ences of our work that we are frequently receiving letters 
and calls from those who left the institution years ago, and 
are now filling positions of honor and trust in the commu- 
nities where they reside." 

The advantages growing out of the teaching of mechan- 
ical industries in our reform schools, both to those who are 
taught there and to the State, cannot be overlooked if the 
best results are to be obtained. If the boys are sent out 
without the knowledge of some useful trade or occupation 
by which they can gain an honest living, especially if they 
have no friends able and willing to aid them, they will be 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 2 2Q 

likely to relapse into crime, however good their intentions 
may be when discharged from the institution. This neces- 
sity, as we have seen, has been felt and appreciated by those 
in control of the Reform School at Lansing, and efforts are 
being made to supply the deficiency. 

The history of the Industrial School at Rochester, New 
York, is instructive on this subject, and as showing the prog- 
ress made in reformatory institutions within the last few 
years. That institution, like the one at Lansing, was estab- 
lished as a prison for boys convicted of crime, and for several 
years bore the name of the " Western House of Refuge." 
The labor of the boys was let by contract, and consisted 
mainly in seating chairs and making shoes. 

At the National Conference of Charities and Correction 
in 1887, Mr. L. S. Fulton, superintendent of the school, after 
stating the difficulties in the way of introducing a variety of 
trades during some fifteen years of his experience as superin- 
tendent, says, " I could find no way out of the dilemma 
until about two years ago, when I received a communication 
from Mr. Litchworth, saying that he was coming to see me 
on an important subject. In a few days he came, and during 
a long conversation that I then had with him he told me 
about the technological system of the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology, in Boston, and said he had a set of their 
models. After he got through I said, ' That is a very prac- 
tical idea, I would like to have it adopted in this institution/ 
We then agreed that we would see the president and secre- 
tary and treasurer of the board. After a conference with 
them, it was decided to call a meeting of the board. A 
meeting was held, a committee was appointed to consider 
the subject, a favorable report was returned, which was 
unanimously adopted by the board, and an appropriation 
was asked and granted by the Legislature with which we 
established in our institution this technologic idea of trade- 
schools." . . . " I had been ambitious," continues Mr. Fulton, 



230 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



" to accomplish the largest amount of Work with the smallest 
expense, for it was then considered that he was a model 
superintendent who could do this. I was trying all I could 
to make these boys earn a large amount of money, so as 
to make the per capita expenditure as small as possible. 
But I have changed my views. I believe that the cost of 
maintenance should not be taken into the account. We 
should be economical in our expenditures, but should not 
seek to have large earnings. We should try to make 
what we can of the boy, not what we can make out of 
him. 

" Our first shop was a carpenter and joiner's ; the second, 
a wood-turner and pattern-maker's ; the third, a blacksmith's ; 
the fourth, a bricklayer and plasterer's ; and the fifth a foundry. 
We have already a shoemaker's and tailor's-shop. We have 
it in contemplation to establish three other industries, — a 
machine-shop, a drawing-school for free-hand and mechani- 
cal and architectural drawing, and the erection of green- 
houses to teach floriculture. The shops now in operation 
are models of their kind." 

In these shops the boys are taught by competent in- 
structors who feel a deep interest in the work. " The boys," 
says Mr. Fulton, " are greatly interested in their work, be- 
cause they are not working for the State, but for themselves. 
They are more manly, self-reliant, and cheerful than under 
the old system. The teacher of carpentry and joinery 
not only gives instruction in the use of tools, but he tells 
them all about the lumber that they use ; the different kinds 
and qualities ; how pine differs from hemlock, oak, ash, or 
other timber ; what they are used for, and why ; how they 
season, shrink, and warp ; such things as a master mechanic 
never thinks of telling his apprentices. Everything is done 
by rule, and in a scientific manner. The last half-hour he 
takes them to a class-room, and gives them an exercise in 
drawing. They make everything after a drawing, making 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 2 $I 

their own measurements from a scale; plain butt-joints, 
mitre, dovetail, and blind dovetail-joints, doors, window- 
frames, newel-posts, brackets, etc. 

" We recently erected a laundry, thirty by sixty feet. The 
entire work of carpentering, joinery, masonry, painting, etc., 
was done by the boys ; and it is as good a building of its 
kind as there is in Rochester." 

After describing the modes of instructing in different 
trades, Mr. Fulton adds, " Thus they become skilled work- 
men. Besides this work, they have three and a half hours 
each day in school, and three more hours for recreation, and 
they are as cheerful and happy as any like number outside. 

" If any of you are interested in reform schools or similar 
work, let me advise you to go to work at once and convince 
your board of managers or directors of the practicability of 
teaching your boys trades ; transform your institutions into 
schools of technology, where you will not only educate the 
head, but the hands also, and make of your boys skilled 
workmen at some trade or calling, sending them out armed 
and equipped to fight life's battles honorably and success- 
fully, and to become self-reliant, self-respecting, and self- 
supporting citizens." 

Boys are committed to this institution for an indefinite 
time, and may be held during their minority. But the 
board of managers have the power to discharge a boy, 
when they believe it is for the best interest of the boy, his 
parents, and the State to do so. Each boy is allowed to 
learn what he is best adapted for. Most of them learn to 
do very good work in six to eight months. They learn 
very much more rapidly under the system of instruction 
adopted in the school than they could from imitation. 

The institutions of which some account has been given 
above, and institutions of like character in other States and 
countries, are designed for the reformation of youthful 
offenders, and not for adults. But the general principles 



232 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



upon which they are conducted may be applied to the con- 
duct of district prisons or reformatories for the treatment or 
discipline of older offenders, who are convicted of crimes 
and misdemeanors not punishable by imprisonment in the 
penitentiary. That a majority of such offenders may, by 
judicious treatment, be transformed into good citizens we 
can entertain no doubt. 

Dr. Buchanan, referring to the reports of the commis- 
sioners of the Ohio Reform School, says, " It is an encour- 
aging fact, too, as stated in the report of 1870, that instead 
of finding reformation more difficult with the older boys, 
they have been more successful in establishing their moral 
principles, for, having more strength of character, they take 
a firmer hold of good principles. In this fact I think we 
have great encouragement to believe that many of the still 
older criminals who are confined in State penitentiaries will 
prove good subjects for moral reform when they receive the 
benefit of a similar institution. 

" Indeed, I think this was fully proved by the experience 
of Burnham Wardwell, superintendent of the Virginia State 
Prison, a man whom nature designed for the management 
and reformation of criminals. I think we owe a much 
deeper debt of gratitude to moral heroes in an humble 
sphere than to many whom the world honors. 

" Fellenburgh at Hofwyl, Mr. Wichern at Hamburg, Mr. 
Howe and his associates at Lancaster, and Mr. Burnham 
Wardwell in the Virginia prison, are the men we should 
love and honor. Mr. Wardwell is not an educated man, 
but he has the genius of reformatory love. He treated the 
prisoners as brothers, and instead of governing them by 
handcuffs and bayonets, he dismissed his guards and brought 
the six hundred and fifty prisoners unchained and unguarded 
into the chapel to hear the fervid appeals of a truly Christian 
minister. He so elevated their sense of honor that he could 
trust them anywhere, and often sent them out of prison with 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



233 



no escort but his little son. He tells an amusing story of a 
party whom he allowed to leave the prison and make a do- 
nation visit to their chaplain. One of his fiercest prisoners 
carried a long sharp knife for his donation, and when asked 
about it on the return of the party, he said he would have 
cut the throats of any who would have attempted to run 
off" 

The institution for the discipline of adult offenders which 
has attracted the largest share of public attention is the re- 
formatory at Elmira in the State of New York, under the . 
superintendency of Mr. Z. R. Brockway, a man of large ex- 
perience, broad and liberal views, and indomitable energy 
and perseverance in the work of reformation, to which his 
life is consecrated. 

In an article by Charles Dudley Warner, entitled "A 
Study of Prison Management," published in the North 
American Review for April, 1885, he gives a somewhat de- 
tailed account of this institution, its management, and the 
result claimed to have been attained therefrom. Mr. 
Warner says, " Here is an experiment in the personal treat- 
ment of convicts, unique, so far as I know, in the world." 
The reformatory is described as " a somewhat pretentious 
building, situated upon an eminence. ... In point of ar- 
rangement, light, air, roominess, ventilation, etc., it conforms 
to modern notions. It is as little gloomy and depressing as 
a place of penal confinement can be. What distinguishes it, 
however, is that it is provided with school-rooms sufficient 
for the accommodation of all its inmates. And it is, as we 
shall see, a great educational establishment, the entrance to t 
which is through the door of crime. The key-note of it is 
compulsory education. The qualifications for admission to 
it are that the man convicted of a State-prison offence shall 
be between the ages of sixteen and thirty, and that he has 
not been in State prison before. In his discretion any judge 
in the State may send a convict of this description to Elmira. 

20* 



234 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



He is sentenced to the reformatory, subject to the rules of 
the institution, not for a definite time ; but he cannot be de- 
tained there longer than the maximum for which he might 
have been sentenced under the law. For instance, if for 
burglary he might have been sentenced to the State prison 
for ten years, he may be held at Elmira for ten years ; but 
he may, in the discretion of the board of managers, who are 
appointed by the governor, be discharged in one year. 

" The institution is practically managed by the superin- 
tendent. The discharges are made only by the board, who 
consider the man's record in the prison, and the proba- 
bilities, from all the evidence concerning him, that he will 
behave if set at liberty. He must have a perfect record 
before the board consider his case; and, besides this, the 
board must have confidence in his will and ability to live up 
to it." 

Mr. Warner states the course of a man's institutional life 
in the reformatory as follows : " Upon his reception he is 
subjected to a bath, clad in the plain suit that is worn by 
the intermediate grade, and locked up in a cell for a day or 
two, to give him time for reflection. He is then taken 
before the superintendent, who makes a thorough exami- 
nation of him, — a complete diagnosis of his physical, 
mental, and moral condition. His antecedents are ascer- 
tained, the habits and occupation of his parents (and grand- 
parents if possible), whether they were temperate or intemper- 
ate, lived cleanly and honestly, or otherwise ; what the man's 
home-life was, if he had any, and at how early years he was 
turned loose upon the world ; what had been his habits and 
associations up to the commission of the crime for which he 
was sentenced. An examination is then made of his phys- 
ical condition, his inheritances, and not simply the actual 
state of his health, but his physical texture, whether fine or 
coarse-grained. His intellectual capacity is next ascertained, 
and then his acquirements. Is he bright or dull, can he 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 2 $$ 

read and write, and how far has his education gone ? In- 
quiry is then made into his moral condition. Has he any 
sensibility, any shame, any susceptibility to praise or blame ? 
What sort of moral fibre has he ? After a keen investiga- 
tion of an hour or so, Mr. Brockway thoroughly knows his 
man. Long practice and a very deep knowledge of human 
nature enable him to diagnose the case pretty accurately. 
The subject finds himself in the presence of a man who 
probably wins his confidence, and who, he may soon dis- 
cover, it is of no use to try to deceive. The result of this 
searching examination is entered at length on the page of 
a big ledger ; the superintendent commonly outlines at the 
bottom the proposed treatment; and the new-comer is in- 
structed in the rules of the institution, and what is expected 
of him, and what he must do in order 'to get out.' 

" He goes at first into the second or intermediate grade, 
and it depends upon himself whether up to the first or down 
to the third. He is made to understand the minute rules 
of behavior that he must attend to ; he is assigned to the 
class in school fitted to his capacity and acquirements, and 
he is put into the workshop that is best adapted to his 
health and training. He is informed of the maximum time 
for which he can be detained, and that he can, by perfect 
conduct in these lines of effort, win his release in one year. 
To effect this he must gain a certain number of credit 
marks, and these credit marks are constantly liable to be 
cancelled by negligence or ill behavior. He is tested at 
every step by the mark system. In the shop he is marked 
according to his diligence, his sharp attention to his work, 
his voluntariness at his labor. If he is listless, slights his 
work, and does not give his mind and energy to it, he not 
only misses credit marks, but will get discredit marks. 
There is no escape for him ; he must work with a will. In 
behavior he must be perfect in obedience to the many and 
minute rules laid down, of which he is furnished a printed 



236 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



copy. In school he is required to study according to his 
capacity, and the marking is much the same as in a well- 
regulated high school. But while he must be perfect in 
work and behavior, he will pass in school if he gains 75 in 
the scale of 100. As soon as he enters upon this course 
of discipline and study an account is opened with him in 
another big ledger." 

The process of his release is stated to be this : " If he is 
reported perfect in three things, labor, school, and conduct, 
— for each of which three marks are required each month, 
making nine in all for six months, — he is advanced to the 
first grade, If he remains perfect in the first grade for six 
months more, gaining nine good marks each month, he 
may then, at the discretion of the managers, be sent on his 
parole. But he is not released on parole until a place is 
found for him in which he can get employment and earn 
his living. If his friends cannot find a place for him, or he 
will not be received back into his former employment, if he 
had any, the institution places him by means of correspond- 
ence. On parole he must report his conduct and condition 
every month to the superintendent, and this report must be 
indorsed by some one of known character. If the paroled 
continues to behave himself for six months, he receives his 
final discharge; if he backslides he is rearrested, brought 
back, and must begin over again. 

" The grades are three, and they mark considerable differ- 
ence in privileges. The first-grade men wear a light-blue 
uniform with a military cap. They occupy better cells than 
the others. They dine together in the large mess-room, at 
small tables, accommodating from eight to twelve, and are 
permitted to talk freely and to spend the noon hour in social 
intercourse. Up till recently a summary of the news of the 
day, culled from the newspapers, was read to them once a 
week at table, but there is a substitute for that now. They 
have somewhat better food than the other grades. When 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 2 -tf 

they march from cells to work-shops, to dining-room, etc., 
they march in columns of four, and they are officered by cap- 
tains and sergeants, chosen by the superintendent from theii 
own number. Monitors in the corridors, clerks, and officers 
for the next grade are chosen from them. Besides these 
privileges, a measure of confidence is reposed in them, but 
they are also under strict discipline, and are liable to be de- 
graded for neglect of duty or failure to report delinquencies 
in their capacity as monitors and sub-officers. 

" The second or intermediate grade wear citizens' dress, 
with Scotch caps. They march in columns of two, of- 
ficered by members of the first grade. They take their 
meals in their cells, and have generally less privileges than 
the first grade. The third, or convict grade, wear suits of 
red clothes, eat in their cells, march in the degraded prison 
lock-step, are officered by officers of the institution, and in 
various ways are made to feel the dishonor of their position 
and greater rigors of prison life. It should be noted that 
the three grades mingle in the workshops and in the 
schools, for they take places in them on other standards 
than that of conduct. 

" Eight hours a day labor is required, and the evenings 
are devoted to the schools. The various branches of an 
English education are thoroughly taught, mostly by able 
men outside of the institution, while some classes are con- 
ducted by inmates. Their education also embraces political 
economy, and such a knowledge of the law and the govern- 
ment of society as is necessary to make them intelligent 
citizens. The end kept in view in history, elementary law 
and morals, political economy, etc., is the fitting of the stu- 
dent to play his part well as a citizen, and to be an orderly 
member of society. These tend to broaden his view of life 
and his interest in it as an orderly process, and to discipline 
his perverted faculties. This is often very difficult. These 
are not normal minds or dispositions. By inheritance or 



238 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

bad practice their natures are warped. Most of them have 
neither the knowledge nor the will to do right. 

" It is a mistake to suppose that criminals are naturally- 
bright. The moral failure has affected the intellect in most 
cases. If they are bright, it is usually in a narrow line, the 
development of a ferret-like cunning and smartness. They 
lack intellectual breadth as they do moral stability. . . . 
They are, in short, in an abnormal condition, and any real 
growth or reformation must be radical, built up from the 
foundation. The skill of the superintendent is shown in 
awakening the interest, in arousing hope and ambition, and 
in creating a moral steadiness of will." 

At the time of Mr. Warner's visit to the reformatory it 
contained a little over six hundred prisoners, and all work- 
ing and studying at first under the strong incentive of gain- 
ing their liberty, but gradually becoming deeply interested in 
the subjects of their study and labor, and stimulated by the 
hope of attaining the means of living honestly, and of being 
respected as good and intelligent citizens. " Sunday morn- 
ing," says Mr. Warner, " the casuistry or morality class 
meets in the chapel. This numbers about two hundred, and 
is selected from all grades, according to intellectual bright- 
ness and attainments. It is for the discussion of questions 
of morals and the conduct of life. The men all take notes, 
for they must pass a written examination upon what they 
hear. The conductor reads or lectures, and free but orderly 
discussion takes place. The first Sunday the writer was 
present they were concluding the reading of Socrates. 
Each man had a printed syllabus of the morning's reading, 
and questions propounded. The next Sunday would be a 
review preparatory to examination. Each man took notes 
as the reading went on. Questions were asked and opinions 
given, the interlocutor raising his hand, and rising when 
recognized by the lecturer. Such absorbed attention I have 
seldom seen in a class-room. . . . Never was compulsory 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



239 



education so completely applied. But it must be confessed 
in this case that the class had got thoroughly interested in 
the subject. The expression of their faces was that of 
aroused intelligence. Nothing seemed lost on the majority 
of them ; the finest points made by Socrates, his searching 
moral distinctions, his humor, you could see were taken in- 
stantly by the expression of their faces. The discussions 
and essays in this class show a most remarkable grasp, sub- 
tilty, penetration, and power of drawing fine moral distinc- 
tions, and the vigor and fitness of the language in which they 
are couched are not the least notable part of the display."" 

" The previous Sunday there had been a lively discussion 
of the question, ' Is honesty the best policy ?' The study 
of the morality of Socrates led the class naturally, and by 
their request, to a study of the morality of Jesus and the 
New Testament, though not at all as a religious inquiry ; 
and thus a result was reached in moral investigation that a 
clergyman, beginning at the other end, probably never 
could have brought this mixed and abnormal class to 
attempt willingly. 

" The reformatory is a busy place ; it has the aspect, as I 
said, of a great industrial and educational establishment. 
What first impresses one accustomed to visit prisons is the 
aroused physical life. The old convict heaviness and hope- 
less inertness of flesh are gone, — gone with the depressing 
hang-dog look. The men work, move about, run up and 
down stairs with alertness and vigor and apparent enjoy- 
ment of motion. We see here the well-known criminal 
type of head, but the expression of face is altogether 
changed; stupidity and hopelessness have given place to 
intelligence and ambition. The change is astonishing. New 
life has been awakened all through the mass ; and the mental 
and physical activity, first aroused by the desire to get out, 
has now, in a large number of prisoners, passed into a desire 
to know something and to be somebody." 



240 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

The contrast these men presented to the inmates of the 
penitentiaries is shown by the account which Mr. Warner 
gives of visits which he had then recently made to two New 
England prisons, — viz., one of the old type at Wethersfield, 
Connecticut, which he describes as " an old and ram-shackle 
establishment, patched up from time to time, and altogether 
a gloomy and depressing place. It is, however," says Mr. 
Warner, " well managed ; it is made to pay about its running 
expenses ; many of the modern alleviations of prison life are 
applied there, — a library, occasional entertainments, a dimi- 
nution of the sentence for good conduct, and so on, — what- 
ever such a place is capable of in the way of comfort 
consistent with the system. But the inmates are the most 
discouraging feature of the exhibition. They are in appear- 
ance depressed, degraded, down-looking, sluggish; mentally, 
and morally tending to more degradation. There is no 
hope or suggestion of improvement within. The discipline 
is good, and the men earn time by good conduct, but 
there are no evidences that the alleviations (which take 
from the former terrors of prison life) are working the 
least moral change. It is a most depressing and dispirit- 
ing sight." 

He also visited the State prison at Cranston, Rhode 
Island, which he described as "a new, handsome granite 
building with the modern improvements. Perfectly lighted 
and ventilated, with roomy cells, a common mess-room, and 
admirable hospital, a more than usually varied dietary, with 
a library, and all the privileges that humanity can suggest 
as consistent with discipline and security, it is as little 
gloomy and depressing as a State prison can well be. 
Having occasion to look into this matter officially, I confess 
that I expected to find at Cranston a very different state of 
affairs from that existing at Wethersfield. The improved 
physical condition ought to show some moral and physical 
uplift in the men. I was totally disappointed. Here were 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 24 1 

the same hang-dog, depressed, hopeless, heavy lot of con- 
victs. The two prisons might change inmates and no visitor 
would know the difference." 

This contrast is certainly very marked, and the cause of 
it very apparent to those who have made a study of crime 
and its treatment. The two systems are wholly unlike in 
their aims and methods, and the results are as different as 
darkness from light. Under the system of definite sentences 
the prisoner is paying the allotted penalty of his crime; 
under the reformatory system the prisoner is working out 
his own salvation with all the moral aids that can be applied 
to effect his cure and restore him to the condition of honor- 
able manhood. Under the former system the prisoner is 
punished and turned loose to commit other crimes ; while under 
the latter he may be honorably discharged, with the strong 
probability that he will not only abstain from the commission 
of crime thereafter, but that he will exert a good moral 
influence that will tend to the prevention of crime. That 
" depraved, degraded, down-looking, physically sluggish ap- 
pearance, mentally and morally tending to more and more 
degradation," described by Mr. Warner, characterizes the 
inmates of all our penitentiaries, whereas in all our reforma- 
tories stupidity and hopelessness give place to intelligence 
and ambition. 

Of those sent to the Elmira reformatory, a certain per- 
centage are incorrigible. Mr. Warner says, " It is believed, 
however, that this percentage could be greatly reduced by 
universal indeterminate sentences, giving a longer time to 
work on obdurate natures." 

He further says, " The reformatory has been in oper- 
ation eight years. The morale of it has been gradually 
changing for the better. At first the heroes (as in other 
prisons) were the biggest, sharpest, most successful rogues. 
The standard has changed. These men are no longer 

looked up to. There is a considerable esprit du corps of 
L q 21 



242 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 






good conduct and progress, and goodness and intellect 
are respected. There is a strong moral influence among 
the inmates themselves in favor of good order and good 
conduct." 

The reports show that eighty per cent, of those who go 
out from this institution are reformed. The men are closely- 
watched for six months after they go out, and a general run 
of many of them is kept afterwards. " In many cases," 
says Mr. Warner, " where a man would probably prefer an 
honest life, he is so morally debilitated by inheritance and in- 
dulgence that it takes a long time to build up in him enough 
moral stamina to carry him along safely through life ; and 
the time of detention is too short. This result — eighty per 
cent, put in a better way — is astonishing when we remember 
that of those ordinarily discharged from State prison, sixty 
per cent, have to be caught and imprisoned again." 

A fact in regard to those who are sentenced to this re- 
formatory is noticed by Mr. Warner, which tends to show 
the diseased and perverted condition of those who are dis- 
posed to pursue a criminal course of life. He says, " I was 
at first surprised to learn that men do not like to be sent to 
this institution ; many of them, perhaps most of them, would 
prefer to go to the regular State prison. Their whole nature 
revolts against the idea of discipline, of study, of reform. 
They like crime and an irregular life, and they hate any in- 
fluences to turn them away from it. They hate the notion 
of behaving, as some boys out of prison hate moral restraint 
and religious instruction. They resent the pressure as long 
as they can ; and some of them, of course, never do sur- 
render, and go out unregenerate." 

The evidences of this abnormal and diseased condition 
are stamped upon their countenances, and may be read as 
easily by the adept in the science of human nature as the 
physician reads the evidence of physical disease in its re- 
cognized symptoms. 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 243 

" As to economy," says Mr. Warner, " I notice by the re- 
port that the Elmira reformatory does not pay. Its inmates 
earn by labor from sixty thousand to seventy-five thousand 
dollars a year, but the State has to appropriate annually 
about thirty thousand dollars to carry it on. It is money 
well spent ; for it would cost the State in cash a good deal 
more than thirty thousand dollars a year to catch, try, and 
send to prison those who would repeat felonies on being 
discharged, if these men followed the state-prison rules. 
And this does not take into account the depredations they 
would commit, the injury to individuals, their bad moral in- 
fluence, and the cost of police to catch them. With such 
results, the Elmira reformatory is worthy of the most 
thoughtful attention of tax-payers, as well as sociolo- 
gists." 

Had the thousands of juvenile offenders, who have been 
saved from a life of crime through the education and disci- 
pline of reform schools, been sentenced to jail or the peni- 
tentiary for definite periods, as adults now are under 
our present system of punishment, the amount of crime 
they would have committed, and the expense attending 
their repeated arrests, trials, and convictions, would have 
been enormous; and the injury to individuals, and the de- Y 
moralizing influence of their conduct upon society could 
not be computed. If, therefore, we consider the reformatory 
system in its economical aspect, it seems very certain that it 
must result in a very large financial gain to the State ; but 
if we also consider the good that is done to the class of of- 
fenders treated, by transforming them into useful, law-abiding 
citizens, and the moral influence of their future lives upon 
society, instead of the evil which they would otherwise 
have effected, the advantage derived from it is incalcu- 
lable. 

To realize the benefits that such institutions are intended 
to yield, and are capable of producing when wisely conducted, 



244 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



it is indispensable that men be found who are qualified by 
nature and habit for their management and superintendence. 
No one doubts the fitness and adaptability of Wichern, 
Stowe, Gower, Fulton, Brockway, and Wardvvell to conduct 
the several institutions of which they have had charge, for 
they have proven their fitness by their success. But these 
positions require a combination of very rare and exceptional 
qualities, physical, mental, and moral ; a commanding pres- 
ence, a sound judgment, and a moral force capable of sub- 
duing the fiercest nature, and with a heart full of human 
sympathy and kindness towards all, and especially towards 
those under his care. To all these must be added business 
tact, experience, and skill, with a general knowledge of all 
branches of education and of all the trades and manual oc- 
cupations carried on in the institution. It is not strange, 
therefore, that the inquiry should suggest itself, whether 
others can be found to fill their places successfully when 
these men become incapacitated. 

Mr. Warner, in view of the manifold duties performed by 
the superintendent of the Elmira reformatory, and the com- 
plicated details of its management, after remarking that the 
experiment was unique, so far as he knew, in the world, 
says, " I suppose it is an open question whether anybody 
except Mr. Brockway could carry it on." The importance 
of this experiment in reforming criminals cannot be over- 
estimated. It appears to us to present one of the great 
questions of the age, if not the greatest, and it would be a 
startling proposition if it were admitted that success or 
failure depended upon any one man. We have no appre- 
hensions upon that score. Every beginning of a good and 
useful thing is the assurance of its completion. Watt dis- 
covered the fact that steam was a force, but others applied 
it to the uses of men. Arkwright invented the spinning- 
jenny, but others improved and applied it. So every valua- 
ble invention and discovery has laid the foundation for new 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



245 



inventions and discoveries, and men are constantly becoming 
qualified to take up and carry forward the work which their 
predecessors had left uncompleted. Mr. Brockway is a man 
of broad views and keen perceptions, with extraordinary 
capabilities for organizing and managing such an institution, 
and with the experience he had gained as the superintendent 
of the Detroit House of Correction, and his observation of 
the working of reform schools for juvenile offenders, he was 
able to organize a full-fledged reformatory for adults, and 
make it a success. Such men are worthy of all honor, and 
his labors and example will tend to enable other men to 
qualify themselves to take up and carry on the work and 
improve upon it, until the institution will be in a large 
measure changed to a school instead of a prison, where stu- 
dents of the first grade, if no others, will be allowed the 
same freedom that is allowed in the reform schools of Ohio 
and Michigan. 

Prominent among those whose names and deeds are 
worthy of being held in everlasting remembrance was Bar- 
wick Baker, of Hardwick Court, Gloucestershire, England, 
recently deceased. He was a country squire, possessed of 
large landed estates with an ample income, who devoted his 
life unsparingly to works of benevolence for ameliorating 
the condition of mankind. He was active in the prelimi- 
nary legislation necessary to the establishment of reforma- 
tory schools throughout England and Scotland, and one of 
the first to establish a reformatory school for boys, which he 
did on his own estate, and which is still in successful opera- 
tion, having accomplished a vast amount of good at no 
slight sacrifice to its original projector. 

General Brinkerhoff, at the annual Conference of Charities 
in 1887, said, " In the death of Barwick Baker the world has 
lost a man who, in some lines of philanthropic work, and in 
results accomplished, has had no superior and but few equals 
during the generation in which he lived. From the time he 

21* 



246 TREATMENT OF CRIME. 

became a magistrate, in 1833, at the early- age of -twenty-six 
years, to the time of his death, December 10, 1886, he was 
identified with every progressive movement in dealing with 
the dependent or criminal classes, and to his personal and 
persistent efforts England is largely indebted for her present- 
advanced position upon these subjects." 

The Gloucestershire Chronicle, published on the day suc- 
ceeding his death, giving some account of the character and 
extent of his work, says : " Half a century ago he was ap- 
pointed a visiting justice of the county jail, and in this ap- 
parently not very important though useful office, held by 
hundreds of other country gentlemen until the prisons were 
tranferred to the State, is found the ' moving why' of his 
career of public usefulness. . . . Speaking in a meeting at 
Gloucester five and thirty years ago, Mr. Baker said that 
the seeing of children in prison time after time had occa- 
sioned him great pain, and he had thought much as to 
whether it could not be remedied. One day the Hon. Miss 
Murray, maid of honor to the Queen, called his attention to 
the possibility of reclaiming vicious children, and said if he 
would bring to her any child that had sufficient strength of 
character to distinguish itself in vice, she had no fear that 
she should not be able to make that child distinguish itself 
in virtue. She urged him to visit a school then established 
in London. He did so and became warmly interested in it. 
Having interested a young friend of his by the name of Bur- 
gough, he established a reformatory in a small brick building 
on his own lands, near his home at Hardwick Court. 

" George Heniy Burgough was in every respect a worthy 
coadjutor of a man like Baker. He was only twenty-four 
years old, and he had in his own right an income of ten 
thousand pounds a year, and yet for two years he resided 
in Mr. Baker's little reformatory, and acted as instructor for 
the young criminals until, broken down by his labors, he 
went to Florence, in Italy, and died. 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



247 



"The school at Hardwick was commenced in 1852, the 
first inmates being three young London thieves brought 
into the country for treatment. For some time the work 
was carried on almost secretly, Mr. Baker and Mr. Bur- 
gough having misgivings as to their success. Mr. Burgough 
died ; but Mr. Baker persevered, and after a while the results 
were such as to attract attention, and in 1854 even the 
London Times made note of it, and similar institutions were 
established ; and now all England is covered by reformato- 
ries for young criminals, and other nations have followed 
their example. 

" Mr. Baker's work, however, was not confined to juvenile 
reformatories alone ; but, pari passu, he carried along to 
success various other reformatory measures. Perhaps the 
most important of these was the police supervision of crim- 
inals on ticket of leave, which has so largely reduced the 
volume of crime in England, and which is now beginning 
to receive acceptance in America." 

In all these reformatories the " moral system" of treat- 
ment prevails, and the abnormal activity of the lower facul- 
ties is overcome, not by punishment, but by the development 
and cultivation of the moral perceptions ; and the demand 
for competent teachers is everywhere supplied. 

In contemplating the wonderful power of the moral and 
mental forces of the human mind as displayed in the influ- 
ence they are capable of exerting upon the lives and con- 
duct, and in developing the latent capabilities of others, we 
find ourselves utterly incapable of assigning any limits to 
its possibilities. Intellect, operating through the organs 
of the brain, gathering the rich fruits of knowledge from 
every field of human research, and inspired by the influx of 
that divine spirit of love to God and love to humanity which 
give the light and the wisdom to guide and direct it to the 
service of mankind, appears almost omnipotent to accom- 
plish any and every conceivable benefit to the human race. 



248 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



By patience and perseverance, and the skill which is ac- 
quired by diligent and oft-repeated experiment, man teaches 
the deaf and dumb to converse intelligently with him and 
with each other, not only by certain motions or signs, and 
by writing, but by oral speech. He teaches the blind also 
to read and write and perform many useful services for 
themselves and others. He teaches the lower animals to 
understand and obey him, and to display a marvellous de- 
gree of intelligence ; and, stranger still, he develops and cul- 
tivates mental and moral faculties in idiotic children who seem 
scarcely to possess the smallest spark of intellect or reason- 
ing power. Cruiser, the most vicious and one of the most 
powerful horses in England, who had resisted all efforts for 
his subjugation by kindness or force until he was regarded 
as untamable, was wholly subdued by Mr. Rarey, without 
punishment or the use of any cruelty or hardship. Like 
many vicious men, he didn't want to be good, and seemed 
determined that he never would be brought under the influ- 
ence of any other power but that of force. But when Mr. 
Rarey had, by an ingenious device, overcome his physical 
power and rendered him incapable of resistance, and then 
applied gentle, kindly treatment, though at first against the 
strong will that had never been curbed, the latent nobility 
of the animal, which had been so long hidden, was aroused, 
and he became docile and submissive, and ever after ex- 
hibited a strong affection for his conqueror and friend. 

The " moral system" of treatment of criminals, while it 
excludes all idea of punishment, does not exclude the idea 
that force, even to the infliction of some degree of pain, may 
be used when necessary, in order to bring the subject of it 
under the influence of moral teaching and kindly discipline. 
Force may be necessary in his capture and to prevent escape, 
and while under treatment to compel obedience to institu- 
tional rules and regulations that are intended for the prison- 
er's benefit and are necessary for the orderly conduct of the 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 249 

institution. Such force has in it no element of punishment 
or retribution, but is applied upon the same principle that 
the surgeon inflicts pain by the amputation of a limb or the 
cauterizing of a wound. Mr. Brockway, it is said, in some 
cases does a little judicious " strapping" or " spanking" with 
good effect, but it is always done by his own hand, and in 
such manner and under such circumstances as to engender 
no feeling of resentment. 

When my father used the rod upon my back and shoulders 
in my boyhood, and I was persuaded that he did so from a 
sense of parental duty for my benefit, I felt no resentment ; 
but when, at about the age of twelve years, a castigation 
was administered, apparently more from passion than duty, 
I felt intensely indignant, and, after receiving the last blow 
without flinching, demanded the cause of the infliction, and, 
feeling that there was no sufficient reason for it, I then, in a tone 
and manner that convinced him that I was deeply in earnest, 
declared that it was the last flogging but one that I would 
ever submit to at his hands ; and no attempt was ever made 
afterwards to repeat the experiment. It was in those days 
the general custom to administer corporal punishment for 
disobedience or neglect of filial duty, the proverb " He 
that spareth the rod hateth his son" being constantly kept 
in remembrance and often repeated. Solomon had said it, 
and he was wiser than they, and they felt bound to manifest 
their faith by their works, as did Freeman in seeking to de- 
stroy his child ; but we have no evidence or belief that any 
mere punishment ever administered was attended with bene- 
fit. It has extorted thousands of promises from children to 
do better, only to be broken when a new temptation came. 

Neither does the " moral system" of treatment afford any 
sanction or encouragement to the sickly sentimentality 
which makes heroes of great or small criminals, "and 
which, under the guise of humanity and philanthropy, 
confounds all moral distinctions." 



250 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



"The mawkish sympathy of good and soft-headed 
women," says Mr. Warner, "with the most degraded and 
persistent criminals of the male sex is one of the signs of 
an unhealthy public sentiment. A self-respecting murderer 
is often compelled to write upon his cards ' No flowers.' 
This foolish display of weak sentimentalism has been so 
earnestly condemned, and satirized by the public press to 
such a degree, that we may earnestly hope that hereafter in- 
stances of its existence will be few and far between." 

Mr. Hough makes the following very sensible and truth- 
ful remarks on the subject of sentimentality towards criminals : 
" Those who are in control of penal institutions meet with 
no more pernicious influence than that exerted by certain 
well-meaning but mistaken philanthropists who are im- 
pelled by kindly hearts to slop over with sentiment. No 
criminal is so hard to reach as the one who fancies himself 
injured, or has a grievance against society. Aside from 
treatment that compels him to feel this resentment, there is 
no one thing that will so quickly bring this feeling as to 
have some tender-hearted, benevolent person tell him that 
they think his penalty is far more severe than his offence 
warrants, especially now that he has promised to pray 
regularly and abandon his wicked ways." 

Crime, including all conscious wrong and injustice done 
by man towards his fellow-man, is a sad subject to contem- 
plate, and the treatment of criminals is one of the most 
serious that can occupy the minds of good men and women ; 
and to make it effectual for reformation requires the utmost 
coolness and deliberation and soundness of judgment, unin- 
fluenced by emotions of sympathy or prejudice. Stern 
justice, administered in a grave but kind and friendly spirit, 
rebuking crime but encouraging repentance, and affording 
hope only through discipline and sincere endeavor, is the 
greatest mercy, and no encouragement based upon any 
other condition can benefit the criminal. 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



251 



If men are able, by the exercise of their mental and 
moral powers, to exert such a wonderful influence in trans- 
forming the characters and conditions of animals and of 
their own species, it would seem, by parity of reason, that 
they should also possess the power of reforming men and 
women addicted to crime, and making good citizens of those 
who have been enemies to society and themselves. But 
when it has been demonstrated by successful experiments, 
as it certainly has been, that a very large portion of our 
criminals can be reclaimed by processes that are simple, 
rational, and practical, as well as economical, it would seem 
to require no argument to convince any of the fact, or that 
it is the policy of the State to adopt the measures necessary 
to secure so benign a purpose. To accomplish this requires 
legislation. Changes of a somewhat radical character in 
our criminal laws are required. The definite sentence must 
be abolished and the indeterminate or indefinite substituted 
in its place, and reformatories provided for to take the place 
of our penitentiaries, which should be retained only for the 
confinement of such as may prove to be incorrigible ; and 
these should never be allowed the opportunity of commit- 
ting further crimes. Under the " moral system" the criminal 
is treated for the cure of his disease, and the incurable 
criminal should receive the same care as the incurably in- 
sane, and the public be protected alike from the injury that 
either might do if turned loose upon it ; the only difference 
in the treatment being such as the different character of the 
disease renders proper. Thus the criminal may be required 
to labor, which the insane person may not be capable of 
doing. 

Why has not such legislation been had ? The Legislature 
of a State represents the average of public opinion, and fol- 
lows rather than seeks to lead it, and public opinion has not 
been educated up to an understanding and appreciation of 
the vast importance of the great principle involved in the 



252 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



proposed "new departure." The churches have been for 
ages professedly seeking the conversion and reformation of 
sinners, and appropriating millions annually for missionary 
work, and millions of voices have sung in numberless ears 
the old hymn containing the encouraging assurance that 

" While the lamp holds out to burn, 
The vilest sinner may return ;" 

but they have not asked the Legislature to make the sen- 
tences of criminals indeterminate, and turn our prisons into 
schools for the reformation of offenders. Within the last 
few years conferences of charities and corrections and 
prison congresses have been held in Europe and America, 
and hundreds of enlightened philanthropists, including many 
eminent clergymen, have attended them and advocated re- 
formatory measures, and their proceedings have been pub- 
lished. But a knowledge of what these men have said, and 
what they are seeking to accomplish, has not been so dif- 
fused as to attract the attention of the general public, and 
they have not had the appreciation which their great impor- 
tance demanded. Many also, who are satisfied that the 
system is right in principle, find difficulty in determining 
what the necessary details shall be, and to what extent 
changes ought to be made. These obstacles will, we have 
no doubt, be overcome at no very distant period, and when 
the system shall be established and perfected so as to be- 
come the settled policy of the State, those then living will 
see, as the English people in their own country have seen, 
a rapid and most encouraging diminution of the volume of 
crime and of the number of our prisons in proportion to 
our population. In an article by Mr. Eugene Hough, pub- 
lished in the first volume of " The Open Court," page 703, 
some very pertinent remarks are made on the treatment of 
crime, which are worthy of attention. Mr. Hough says, 
"Abolish prisons, keepers, and all degrading rules. In- 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 



253 



stitute moral hospitals with trained instructors, with rules 
that will and may be enforced without destroying self-re- 
spect. . . . Abolish the definite sentence ; let the patient re- 
turn into society when he is cured, and not before. Abolish 
the death-penalty ; give all an opportunity of regaining their 
normal social and moral standing. 

" The idea of punishment is as old as history. Old ideas 
are tenacious of life, but they have to die some time, and 
the time has now arrived to kill and cremate this heathen 
idea of punishment. Within the present century many acts 
were thought deserving of punishment that to-day are 
thought best to be treated in a scientific manner. The time 
was when insanity was punished with beating, stoning, and 
death. Lunatics are not thought to be deserving of pun- 
ishment to-day; they are subjected to treatment. What 
makes the difference is that we of to-day recognize the fact 
that lunatics are not possessed by devils, but are diseased. 
No one outside of the detective force, who has given two 
minutes' scientific thought to the subject of crime, but has 
arrived at the truth that it is a disease — a disease of the 
morals. Like consumption, it may be inherited or con- 
tracted, acute or chronic. Like mental disease, it takes 
many phases. It may be moral imbecility or moral lunacy, 
and each divided into numberless forms of the disease, 
each having a distinct aspect of its own. Acknowledged 
as a disease, how absurd to think of curing it by punish- 
ment ! Why not punish a small-pox patient into good 
health? . . . Little need be said of indeterminate sen- 
tences. The protection of society plainly demands that a 
criminal shall not be let loose until he has recovered the use 
of his moral powers. No wise judge can foretell how long 
a time it will take to develop the man's moral faculties suf- 
ficient to warrant his being set at liberty. . . . When the 
wrong-doer has been subjected to the thorough treatment 
of this reform system, and competent scientists (for it will 

22 



254 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



be a science) have pronounced him a man of sound morals 
and good enough to be trusted with his freedom, what folly 
to follow him with social and legal ostracism !" 

Mr. Wheeler, in the paper referred to in the last chapter, 
expresses his views on the treatment of criminals as follows : 
" Let the criminal understand that his interests are not so 
important as the public safety ; that not his punishment but 
the public good is aimed at in his confinement; that the 
length of time that he will remain in prison is altogether 
uncertain, and depends entirely upon himself; that as soon as 
he becomes a safe member of society, able and willing to care 
for himself, and live on his own honest labor, whether in one 
month or twenty years, he will be released, and no sooner ; 
with the certainty that he will be protected and guarded and 
guided in efforts to do right, and arrested and imprisoned if 
he again does wrong, and criminals will fear crime and its 
consequences where they now laugh at it. . . . No one can 
say he is confined too long where all depends upon himself. 
If they cannot feel this and reform, they should be prevented 
from living on the proceeds of their own crimes. 

" The true reformation of a criminal is largely dependent 
on a discipline that will make him self-controlling and self- 
reliant. Hard work, kind treatment, and strict discipline, 
with the idea constantly kept before him that he will be 
liberated just as soon as he becomes able and willing to 
live an honest life, will do more to reform than any system 
now in vogue. . . . Those in charge of the prison can as- 
certain the prisoner's previous history, his hereditary ten- 
dencies, the full history of the crime for which sentenced, 
his character and conduct in prison, his record in other 
prisons, if any, and this, with their knowledge of the char- 
acteristics and methods of the criminal classes, will enable a 
decision to be reached as to proper date of discharge." 

Having considered the nature and effects of crime and its 
causes so far as we can discover them, and indicated the 



PROPER TREATMENT AND DISCIPLINE. 2 $$ 

principles which, in our opinion, ought to be recognized 
and adopted in its treatment, there would seem to be no 
reason for hesitancy on the part of the Legislature in pro- 
viding for the changes necessary to carry into effect the 
reformatory system which we have outlined. The success 
of this system wherever it has been adopted has been so 
marked as to afford no ground for doubt that its results 
have been, and must continue to be, in every way beneficial. 
Among the many reform and industrial schools in Europe 
and America, model institutions may be found from which 
all the necessary details of construction, management, in- 
struction, and discipline may be obtained, and there need 
be no fear that a sufficient number of trained and experi- 
enced men cannot be found to properly conduct all reform- 
atory institutions. The great and beneficent purposes and 
aims of these reformatories, when their institution shall be- 
come the settled policy of the State, will inspire an enthusi- 
asm in the grand work that will be everywhere felt, and will 
engage the attention and command the devotion of the ablest 
and best men in the country to this service. It will be like 
the revelation of anew religion to man, embracing all the 
truths of all historical religions, made clear, simple, and 
practical, with their errors, superstitions, and mysticisms 
eliminated, so that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need 
not err therein, and so that, though a man may not com- 
prehend the law and the prophets, he can understand and 
obey the two simple commandments of Jesus, upon which 
" hang all the law and the prophets." It will be a religion 
of humanity, in which all can agree, whatever speculative 
opinions they may entertain, and under whose benign in- 
fluence all can labor together for the common good of all. 
It points out a practical and rational way of overcoming 
evil with good, such as the world has never before attempted, 
or had any proper conception of until within the last few 
years, and its contemplation, when understood in all its 



256 



TREATMENT OF CRIME. 



grand proportions and simple harmonies, will fire every 
righteous soul with zeal for the accomplishment of its be- 
nign purposes. It is reverent and devotional, while it is 
simple and rational. It conflicts with no truths of science 
or philosophy, but is all-embracing in its lofty aims and 
purposes of redeeming men and women from sin and folly 
and leading them into the ways of wisdom, which are the 
ways of pleasantness, and whose paths are peace. There is 
no intellect so great, and no character so elevated, that the 
possessor would not be honored, as well as benefited and 
ennobled, by engaging in its service. 



ARTICLE IV. 

PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



CHAPTER I. 

EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 

It is a trite saying that " an ounce of prevention is better 
than a pound of cure," and there are few that contain more 
truth and good, practical common sense than this. If our 
people were all educated as they should be during the 
period of childhood and youth, by teaching them those 
things which they ought to know, and surrounding them 
with protecting influences against those which they ought 
not to know, there would be little necessity for prisons and 
reform schools ; for character built on a right basis needs 
no reforming. 

Not only the general government, but the several State 
governments, as we have had occasion to repeat, have 
recognized their interest in the education of the people for 
good citizenship, and the public duty of each to provide for 
the education of its youth. In most of the States education 
in the primary and high schools is free to all, the schools 
being supported by a property tax, levied upon the same 
basis as that for the support of the State and municipal 
governments, in proportion to the value of taxable property 
within the district ; and we are satisfied, after much reflection 
upon the subject, that it is the right and the duty of the 
State to make education compulsory ; and if the parents or 
guardians of children are unable to educate their children 
or wards, the State should perform that duty for them. 

r 22* 257 



258 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

Dr. J. D. Scouller, superintendent of the State Reform 
School at Pontiac, Illinois, in a paper read before the 
Eleventh National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 
discusses the question, " Can we save the Boys ?" in which 
he divides them into three classes, and concludes that all 
classes of them except the first need to be educated and 
surrounded with saving influences, as well for promoting 
the welfare and safety of the community as for the best 
interests of the boys through every period of their lives. 

Dr. Scouller reminds us that " the plan was once tried of 
having men ' ready made' without the boys." " The man," 
says Dr. Scouller, " was such a failure that the experiment 
was never repeated." The first class of boys treated of by 
the doctor are mostly too good to live, and ninety per cent, 
of them accordingly die young. The second class are 
good-hearted, full of life and activity, but full also of im- 
pulses that might lead them astray if not guided and con- 
trolled by good counsels and proper discipline. The third 
class, he says, are " the boys who will make our criminals, 
who will be our law-breakers ; the boys who love the world, 
the flesh, and the devil, . . . the boys who prowl our streets 
at midnight, whose hands are too soft for manual labor, who 
are too young and delicate to work, belong to this class. 
The streets at midnight, and no work, will damn the best 
boy that ever a mother nursed." 

Of the boys who are not blessed with parental care he 
says, " Many of the Arabs belonging to the community 
have no such care. They are left to fight the battle of life 
alone, the world for their step-mother, sorrow their only 
school-master. It takes far more innate virtue for a boy 
under such circumstances to grow into an honest, God-fear- 
ing man than it does for a boy who is kindly watched and 
cared for ; and, for this very reason, the more loudly comes 
the Macedonian cry, ' Help us ! Help us !' ' What can I 
do for you ?' a lady once asked a weeping orphan. ' Oh, 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 



259 



ma'am, you can aye speak a kind word to me, for I have no 
mother like the rest/ If there be no help or kind words 
for such boys from good men and women, then ' may God 
hear the voice of the lads' and rouse us to our duty. The 
saving of such boys is a work, not a myth ; a fact, not a 
theory ; a privilege as well as a duty. 

" Sir Humphry Davy was once asked for a list of his 
greatest discoveries. He answered, ' My greatest discovery 
was Michael Faraday.' He found him, a poor boy, wash- 
ing bottles in his labaratory. He lifted him up till he became 
one of the world's greatest men. The Christian worker 
who discovers a good mind and soul, though amid poverty 
and rags, is among the greatest of modern discoverers. 

" Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, one of the fathers of rag- 
ged schools, was once at a meeting where a speaker de- 
scribed Dr. Guthrie's ragged school-children as 'the scum 
of the country.' When the doctor's turn came for speaking, — -r* 
he seized a sheet of writing-paper lying on the table, and, 
holding it up, said, ' This was once the scum of the country, 
— once foul, dirty, wretched rags. In it, now white as the 
snows of heaven, behold an emblem of the work our rag- 
ged schools have achieved.' " 

In regard to those whom Dr. Scouller designates as the 
third class, he says, " I have had some little experience 
with this class, and I am convinced, after no little thought, 
that the State should demand the guardianship of the 
children of all parents who, either from their criminal pro- 
clivities or actual transgressions, are unfit to manage their 
children other than raise them as law-breakers or vagabonds. 
The State should take them when they are young enough to 
be susceptible to moral lessons, if there be any moral soil to 
plant on. A man found sowing thistle-seeds upon another 
man's land, or scattering fire-brands in a city, should at once 
be punished. Yet this nation, founded on democracy, whose 
very existence depends upon the virtue of its members, 



2 6o PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

suffers a criminal class to grow whose whole aim and object 
is to undermine the confidence of the community and to 
weaken the strength of the commonwealth." 

In our public primary schools we are professedly attempt- 
ing to educate the children of both sexes in the common 
branches of learning, excepting only those whose condition 
requires some special treatment or discipline on account of 
exceptional characteristics or circumstances. In our high • 
schools, colleges, and universities every branch of knowl- 
edge which goes to make up a complete education is sup- 
posed to be imparted. Immense sums of money are raised 
and expended annually by the people of the State for edu- 
cation, and in many of our cities the taxes levied for school 
purposes are a heavy burthen upon the tax-payers. The 
object of all this expenditure is to make intelligent, good, 
and useful citizens of the youth who are soon to take the 
place of those now upon the stage of active, busy life, — an 
object so desirable, so philanthropic and beneficent, as to 
challenge the hearty approval of a vast majority of our citi- 
zens, while few are found to question its wisdom or its 
policy. If this object were accomplished in a degree pro- 
portioned to the financial outlay for its attainment, we 
should need fewer prisons or reformatories for the treatment 
of criminals. But after devising a system of schools, and 
providing for their proper organization and the erection of 
the necessary buildings for the accommodation of teachers 
and pupils, comes the most important consideration, What 
and how shall the children be taught ? 

To the first part of this question no wiser or truer answer 
has ever been made than that given by Agesilaus, King of 
Sparta. When asked what boys ought to learn, he replied, 
" Those things which they are to practise when they come 
to be men." If a similar question be asked in regard to 
girls, a similar answer would be appropriate : " Those things 
which they are to practise when they come to be women." 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 2 6l 

In other words, education of the young should be practical, 
and the aim of all their teaching should be to make them " 
good and useful and intelligent, and to shield and guard 
them against any influence which would have an opposite 
tendency. 

An enlightened sense of moral obligation and duty, and a 
thorough training in such industrial arts and occupations as 
they are respectively best adapted to pursue, are the equip- 
ments and armor with which every young person, male or 
female, should be provided on starting out in life. The 
intellect and the moral faculties should be developed and 
cultivated in every school, and industrial pursuits taught in 
the higher institutions of learning, in conjunction with the 
arts and sciences and literature. Dr. Buchanan, in his " New 
Education," to which we have before referred, states what he 
conceives to be the indispensable elements of a proper edu- 
cation, of which he designates five, as follows : 

First. " The first and most necessary is physiological de- ^ 
velopment ; the formation of the manly, healthy constitution, 
competent to live a hundred years, — competent to win suc- 
cess in life by unflagging energy, — competent to enjoy life 
and health, and tjius become a source of happiness to others, 
instead of a pauper or an invalid, — competent to transmit life 
and health and joy to thousands of future ages, — competent 
to meet all the difficulties of life triumphantly, instead of 
struggling in misery and railing at society and Divine Provi- 
dence. ... A male or female school which does not develop 
its pupils, which does not send them home in better health 
and development than when they were received, ought to be 
abolished as a mistake or a nuisance." 

The exceeding great importance of such physical develop- 
ment can hardly be overestimated, and the neglect of such 
training and instruction as are necessary to secure and 
maintain a sound and vigorous physical condition is an 
egregious fault, if not a crime. 



262 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

Second. u The second element of a liberal education is 
training for the business and duties of life, — in other words, 
Industrial Education, without some share of which it were 
better for a man that he never had been born, for without 
industrial capacity (unless a hereditary capitalist) he must 
be either a beggar, a thief, or a swindler. 

" In neglecting physiological education we have degener- 
ated the human race, impaired its efficiency, and saddled on 
its back a costly medical profession — ten times as many 
physicians as should be needed, who struggle to prolong 
lives that are hardly worth preserving — that perpetuate 
physical and moral degeneracy. In neglecting industrial 
education, we have produced a race of soft-handed, soft- 
muscled men, who struggle to escape man's first duty, 
useful production, and to live at others' expense by the in- 
numerable methods of financial stratagem. The reign of 
fraud will never cease until each man is taught that life 
presents this sharp alternative, — useful production or the 
life of the vampire. He who has attained manhood without 
being trained to useful production may justly utter maledic- 
tions against parents and schools for having blasted his life 
and deprived him of the only solid foundation of honor and 
prosperity." 

Tliird. " The third element in a liberal education, next in 
importance to the physical and industrial, is the medical. . . . 
The first duty of a man is to sustain himself that he be not 
a burden to others. This corresponds to industrial educa- 
tion. It is to sustain himself in full vigor of mind, soul, 
and body, that he may perform every duty, and be a help 
instead of a burden to all around him. Without this second 
duty performed, physiological development and industrial 
culture are both failures ; and without either of these three 
indispensable qualifications, the man himself may be a total 
failure. ... I mean an education by which disease shall be 
stamped out in its incipience. ... Its first approaches are 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 2 6$ 

easily repelled. The great majority of diseases can be re- 
pelled without the use of drugs." 

To know how to avoid or to repel disease is an acquisi- 
tion the value of which we can all appreciate, for all suffer 
more or less from its effects, and there are no evils in the 
world, excepting moral evils, that produce so much misery 
as proceeds from ignorance of man's physical constitution 
and its requirements, and the thousand dangers to which it 
is constantly exposed. 

Fourth. " With physical, industrial, and medical education 
man is just prepared to live. But that his life shall be worth 
living, shall be a blessing to himself and the world, we need 
the fourth element of a liberal education, which is to make 
him a good and happy man, — the moral, or ethical, or relig- 
ious education. Either of these words, rightly understood, 
conveys the full idea, for each mean the same; although 
contracted and perverted by vulgar usage, each word has 
but half its proper meaning. I mean the education which 
shall exalt man to the plane of a happy, a holy, and a glo- 
rious life, in harmony with the Divine nature, — a life so 
high that it shall be in communion with the angels, — a life 
so beneficent that it shall diffuse happiness around to all, 
and leave a blessed fragrance in all the atmosphere that it 
filled." 

Fifth. As the fifth and last and least important element 
of education, as it has been heretofore considered, Dr. Bu- 
chanan places the literary or the intellectual. " Colleges," 
he says, " are supposed to be devoted to intelligence, but I 
affirm that they should be devoted first to virtue, and that 
it is as practicable to take the plastic elements of youth and 
thereof make a good man as it is to make an intelligent or a 
wise one. Intellectual without moral education simply in- 
creases the dangerous and corrupting elements of society. 
It gives the sceptre of knowledge into the hands of the 
social Lucifers. ... A perfect liberal education should ex- 



264 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



tinguish the elements of hereditary disease and fortify 
against their possible development. ... A perfect liberal 
education would prepare every individual for his life pursuit 
as thoroughly at least, as the lawyer is prepared for prac- 
tice. . . . Our illiberal system of education, confining its 
training for life to the literary professions, degrades labor, 
drives ambitious men into non-manual vocations, and leaves 
the industrial classes, or a large portion of them, ignorant 
and degraded, unable to better their condition, crushing 
each other in blind competition for employment, helpless to 
employ themselves, dependent on capital and corporations, 
struggling for a meagre subsistence, living half the length of 
days enjoyed by the prosperous, and their short lives be- 
clouded by disease and the grief of premature deaths in their 
families ; while the whole struggle of life lowers their moral 
nature, tempts to crime, and invites to suicide, — in which 
they find uniting with them many of the superficially pros- 
perous, but ill-trained, to whom life yields no substantial 
joy. Of such material is society composed, which continu- 
ally threatens, by social convulsions, to fall into anarchy, 
— a disorder that is kept only at bay by the policeman's club 
and the soldier's bayonet. . . . 

" Liberal education makes the school-room a delightful 
place, to which the children resort with eagerness, in which 
their songs maintain a spirit of harmony, obedience, and love, 
and the voice of threatening is never heard ; in which they 
grow into habits of politeness, friendliness, hospitality, obedi- 
ence, diligence, zeal, energy, manliness, self-respect, truthful- 
ness, and cheerfulness, which enable them to set examples 
that improve their seniors, and to begin life with a stock of 
religious virtue sufficient to defy temptation. . . . 

" As for the elements of present and eternal life, illiberal 
education has left its subjects as it found them, or perhaps 
has left them to dislike authority, to avoid books of useful 
instruction, to consider idle sport the supremest pleasure 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 



265 



and labor the greatest degradation ; to be moved chiefly by 
rivalry and jealousy, to scoff at profound moral truths, to 
assail or ignore whatever does not accord with their preju- 
dices, or with a low animal view of life ; to trifle with all 
solemn thoughts, to ignore the welfare of others, to look to 
money, power, and ostentation as the goal of life, and to 
pursue that aim without regard to the laws of health, with- 
out regard to any high principle (perhaps even without 
regard to law), and to ignore our eternal destiny until the 
cold hand of hovering death shuts out all scenes of earthly 
ambition and raises a debased soul to the consciousness that 
it is plunging into the darkness of eternity. 

" In short, illiberal education is responsible for the vast 
increase of debasement, of crime, suicide, insanity, pauper- 
ism, and mortality which statistics alarmingly prove to have 
occurred in the present century, during which, while religion 
and morals have declined, intemperance has much more 
than doubled in that English-speaking race which is des- 
tined to be the leading power of the world. . . . The 
entire degradation and perversion of education has been 
caused by the exclusion of ethical influence and principles, 
and will cease when the ethical element shall be intro- 
duced. Uninspired by love, primary education has been 
simply a tyranical enforcement of tasks, generating, like 
all tyranny, sullen discontent, secret hate, furtive evasion, 
or restless disobedience, and steadily maintaining a low 
moral status. With proper ethical sentiments, the teacher, 
who has all the world's wealth of intellectual delight and 
information at command, would be the most fascinating 
companion to whom his pupils could approach, and the 
school would be their favorite resort, exclusion from which 
would be keenly felt as a punishment. Uninspired by love, 
the higher education has been a selection of themes and 
tasks without regard to the welfare of the pupil, and with- 
out any thought of qualifying him to reach a higher stage 

M 2^ 



2 66 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

in civilization, or to get rid of the errors inherited from 
ancestry or instilled by teachers." 

What Dr. Buchanan says of the education given at the 
Reform School of Ohio may be taken as indicating what 
should be regarded as the proper education of every youth. 
He says, " It is intellectual, practical, and moral. They give 
half their time to instruction, the other half to work, and 
throughout the whole they are under moral influences. In- 
dustry — the daily performance of duty in work — is the very 
foundation of moral culture, without which the moral nature 
has little stamina, and may degenerate into mere sentimen- 
tality. It is the resolute doing of duty every hour in the 
day which makes the substantial moral character that will 
stand the conflicts of life ; and as labor is the chief duty of 
life, it follows that no moral education is entirely substantial 
that does not include labor. This is the secret of the won- 
derful success of the reform school. Another open secret 
is, that in a school of three hundred youths, disciplined to 
duty and friendship by love, labor, and song, there is a 
public sentiment, an irresistible moral power, which at once 
corrects and assimilates the new arrivals, as dead flesh is 
assimilated into the human body." 

The moral leverage of this public sentiment which be- 
longs to an institution with a large and well-trained band 
of pupils, under the control of their teachers, isolated from 
surrounding society, may not be expected to pervade 
families and schools in general with the same potency that it 
does such a body of pupils in a reform school. But if par- 
ents or guardians and teachers are, each in their several rela- 
tions and offices, fitted for the positions they occupy towards 
those under their charge, a moral sentiment will animate 
each member of the household or the school that will inspire 
to labor and to duty, and secure cheerful obedience on the 
part of the children and pupils to all proper and just rules 
for their guidance and the government of their conduct. 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 



267 



While the child is with its parents or guardian, and attends 
the schools of the township or city where they reside, its in- 
dustrial education depends upon such parents or guardian, 
and is often sadly neglected for various reasons. Among 
farmers, gardeners, mechanics, and others who are their 
own employers, the boys can, when of a proper age, be in- 
structed in the trade or calling to which the head of the 
family is devoted ; and if this is done intelligently, and with 
such explanations of the uses and importance of labor, and 
its true dignity, as it justly deserves in the economy of life, 
and with an appreciation on the part of the instructors of 
the capabilities and adaptation of the learner for the em- 
ployment in which he is engaged, it may be made a pleasure 
and not a burdensome task, and may be prosecuted with 
much of the zeal and enjoyment that boys find in a game 
of ball or other kind of play. 

Appreciating the benefits, both physical and mental, and 
the satisfaction that we have derived from the habitual per- 
formance of a considerable amount of manual labor every 
year for more than seventy consecutive years, we cannot 
but conclude that those who despise useful labor and prefer 
a life of idleness, or who squander their time in amusing 
themselves and others without giving any valuable equiva- 
lent for what they consume of the products of others' labor, 
must have failed to receive such an education as their in- 
terests and the interests and duty of others justly demanded, 
and that their moral standard is far below what it should 
have been. The moral law requires that we shall not only 
abstain from things hurtful to ourselves or others, but that 
we shall do what we can in our several circumstances to 
make the world better and its people wiser and happier. 

That there is a lamentable deficiency in the qualifications 
of our school-teachers is generally admitted. Of the thou- 
sands employed to teach, scarcely one in a hundred is really 
qualified for the position. They may be competent to in- 



2 68 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

struct in those branches of learning commonly taught in 
our schools from books, after the usual manner of teaching, 
but they do not know how to reach the heart and soul of 
the pupil, engage his attention, secure his affections, and 
command his reverence, and must therefore fail to enlighten 
his understanding and implant in his susceptible mind those 
ideas and principles which go to make up a strong, vigorous, 
morally healthy, and admirable character. However learned 
a teacher may be, if he has not this power, and does not 
take pleasure in exercising it for the benefit of his school, 
he will do more harm than good in attempting to teach. 
The old way of governing a school through appeals to the 
fears of the pupils, and compelling obedience by the use of 
the rod and the ferrule, is almost universally repudiated, and 
milder means of government have been adopted, and higher 
qualities in the character of the teacher are demanded in 
order to insure success. 

A brief sketch of our first experience in teaching a com- 
mon school in the State of New York will perhaps best 
illustrate our ideas as to the proper mode of governing and 
teaching a school. 

At the age of nineteen, having formed the design of 
making teaching a profession, and having labored hard 
under adverse circumstances to acquire the necessary learn- 
ing for that purpose, and yet feeling great diffidence and 
some doubt as to possessing the requisite qualifications, I 
deemed it most prudent to commence my professional 
career in a backwoods district, where the pupils would be 
unsophisticated and backward in their studies, and where 
the position of the school-master would command such re- 
spect as to secure ready obedience to school rules and make 
its government easy. Upon making inquiry I heard of a 
district that seemed to offer the conditions that corre- 
sponded with my wishes, and where it was said a teacher 
was wanted for three or four months of the ensuing winter 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 



269 



season. I accordingly went to make my application, and 
finding one of the trustees in the woods chopping near a 
small clearing, inquired of him whether they desired to 
employ a teacher. He seemed to be a frank, honest, straight- 
forward sort of man, and replied to my inquiry, " Yes, we 
want a teacher, — one that can govern our school. We 
have a turbulent set of young fellows to manage, — some of 
them larger and older than you look to be, — and for the 
last two winters they've broken up the school and turned 
the teachers out of doors, so we've had no school to amount 
to anything for two years, and you look rather young to 
undertake the job." This was unpleasant news for me. I 
did not covet the chances of being turned out of doors, 
nor of having a fight in order to maintain my position, but 
the alternative of withdrawing my application and acknowl- 
edging that I had not the courage to meet the emergency, 
whatever it might be, was much more repulsive. I did not 
hesitate, therefore, to say that I thought I could manage 
the school, and informed him that I was willing to under- 
take it, with the assurance of the trustees that I should 
have their support in such measures as I might deem neces- 
sary for preserving order and decorum in the school. We 
therefore entered into a contract by which I was to teach the 
school during three months, and was to be paid ten dollars 
per month and board around among the patrons of the 
school. 

During the few days between my engagement and the 
commencement of my work I reflected very seriously upon 
the subject of school government, and applied myself earn- 
estly to devising some plan by which I should get control of 
the school and bring it into subjection, without attempting 
the use of physical force ; for it seemed altogether probable 
that such an attempt would be resisted by the united force 
of the whole set of " turbulent fellows" referred to by the 
trustee, and that in such a contest I should be put out as 

23* 



270 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



my predecessors had been, and the school broken up for 
another year. 

From my experience as a pupil under different teachers 
in common schools, and what I had learned of the character 
and disposition of the boys of my own age, and the opin- 
ions entertained by them in regard to the methods of gov- 
ernment adopted by their teachers, I had arrived at the con- 
clusion that moral power ought to supersede physical force, 
and that corporal punishments should very rarely be admin- 
istered. I had observed that the teacher who assumed an 
air of authority, and came into the school armed with a rod 
and ferrule, failed to command a willing obedience, but, on 
the contrary, provoked a disposition in his pupils to secretly 
disobey his injunctions and take pleasure in annoying and 
vexing him when they could do so without detection. I 
had observed also, that those teachers who were most pa- 
tient and friendly with those under their charge, and invited 
obedience by suggestion and appeals to the reason and un- 
derstanding of the pupils rather than commanded it, were 
more successful, both in government and in communicating 
instruction. I therefore determined to adopt this course in the 
management of the school I had engaged to teach, though 
I formed no "definite plan as to how I should accomplish it. 

In observing and reflecting upon the methods of instruc- 
tion generally adopted, it had appeared to me that but little, 
if anything, was done by the teacher to enlarge and cultivate 
either the mental or moral faculties of the pupils, and that 
memory was the faculty mostly brought into exercise. 

Remembering the many puzzling questions that had 
arisen in my early experience, and the strange notions that 
I had imbibed from some of my reading lessons, and which, 
from want of encouragement on the part of the teacher, I 
had been too timid to ask a solution of, I discerned the ne 7 
cessity of making every lesson an occasion for exercising and 
enlarging the intellectual and, as far as practicable, the moral 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 2 Jl 

faculties of the learners. The system which I adopted for this 
purpose will be explained as I proceed with my narrative. 

On the day appointed, I was present and commenced, my 
labors as teacher. The school-house was built of rough 
logs, with a large open fireplace in one end, and furnished 
with board seats and long writing-tables next the walls. 
There were thirty-five or forty present of both sexes, five or 
six of whom were young men from fifteen to twenty years 
of age, and a corresponding number of young women of 
similar ages. The first day was spent in classifying the pu- 
pils and going through the usual school exercises, without 
any attempt to lay down or require a compliance with rules. 
It was very perceptible that most of the time of the pupils 
was occupied in trying to size up the new teacher and 
satisfy themselves as to his temper and disposition, and the 
teacher was* as sedulously occupied in observing the con- 
duct and studying the characters exhibited by them. 
During the day the whole school seemed possessed by the 
spirit of disorder. Whenever they thought they could do 
so without attracting my notice, they indulged themselves 
in grimaces and contortions of the facial muscles, in rising 
suddenly from their seats and as quickly returning to them, 
and in other disorderly conduct for their own gratification 
and the amusement of the school. The prospect of success 
at the close of the school on that day did not appear very 
flattering, but without administering any rebuke I resolved 
that on the following day I would make a determined effort 
to bring them to order. To this end I requested the pupils 
present to give notice to their parents and others interested, 
that I desired as full an attendance as possible of those who 
were to be pupils in the school on the following day, and 
stated that I should have something very important to say 
to them, in which all would be interested. 

The following night was one of sleeplessness and deep 
anxiety. The situation was critical, and my future pros- 



2/2 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

pects in life seemed to depend very largely upon the issue. 
If I could succeed in bringing the school into willing sub- 
jection, I had no doubt of my ability to benefit my pupils 
and give satisfaction to all who were interested ; but if I 
failed, the consequences might be disastrous both to me and 
to the school. Before reaching the school-house on the fol- 
lowing morning I had laid out a plan of procedure which I 
hoped and believed might be successful. As the pupils 
came in, and before opening the school, I extended a cor- 
dial and friendly greeting to those whose acquaintance I had 
made the previous day, and saluted the others in the same 
friendly spirit, and thought I perceived a more respectful 
manner on the part of the older pupils than they had ex- 
hibited on the previous day. The feeling indicated by their 
furtive glances at the teacher and at each other, and the de- 
fiant air which I had observed the previous day on coming 
among them, seemed to have given place to one of serious 
inquiry and expectancy as to what was about to take place, 
of which they had as yet had no intimation ; and I am sat- 
isfied now that no wiser course could have been pursued 
than that which was adopted, of leaving them for a time in 
entire ignorance and suspense as to what were my intentions 
in regard to their government. If I had undertaken to 
govern them, or to lay down rules for the government of 
the school on the first day, the attempt would probably have 
inspired a feeling of opposition which it would have been 
difficult to overcome. The course pursued was unexpected 
and puzzling to them, and excited inquiry and reflection 
upon the subject, and led them into a different frame of 
mind from that which they at first exhibited. The same 
principle is acted upon, I observe, by Mr. Brockway at 
the Elmira Reformatory. Each prisoner when received is 
locked up in a cell for one or two days to give time for re- 
flection before he is placed under discipline, or the rules of 
the institution are made known to him. 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 273 

At the usual time of commencing the school exercises I 
called the pupils to order, and they gave me their earnest 
and undivided attention while I addressed them in substance 
as follows : 

" When you were dismissed last evening I informed those 
of you who were then present that I should have something 
very important to say to you this morning, in which all of 
you would be interested. You are all aware that I have 
been employed by the trustees to be your teacher during 
the present winter. Now, lest you should be under some 
misapprehension as to our relations as teacher and pupils, I 
wish to explain to you my ideas of what that relation means, 
and what is required in order that you may reap the benefits 
which you have a just right to expect from my labors in that 
capacity, and as I proceed I wish you to carefully weigh and 
consider what I have to say, and to reason upon it so as to 
form a judgment for yourselves as to whether I am right or 
not, and if I express any idea that any of you think is wrong, 
I desire you, in a proper manner, to tell me so. First, then, 
I wish to say that I have not been engaged to tyrannize over 
you, nor to rule the school in any rash or unreasonable way, 
but I understand that in my office of teacher I have under- 
taken to instruct you to the best of my ability in the various 
branches of learning usually taught in common schools, such 
as reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, and gram- 
mar. I shall assume that you all desire to become intelligent 
and respectable, as well as useful men and women, and you 
all understand that in order to become so it is necessary that 
you acquire a knowledge of all these different branches of 
study, and your parents and guardians evince the interest 
they feel for your welfare and happiness in life by sending 
you here to gain this knowledge. That I possess the requi- 
site qualifications to give the instruction you need appears 
by a certificate which I was required to obtain from the 
school inspectors of your township, and I hope to make it 



274 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



more manifest to your understanding as the school pro- 
gresses. In some of your studies I shall adopt a method 
which I have no doubt will be new to you, the object of 
which will be to cultivate not only your intellectual but your 
moral faculties at the same time. This will require great 
labor on the part of your teacher and close attention and 
study on your part, but the satisfaction we shall both derive 
from it will more than compensate for the labor and study 
devoted to it. I am here to be your friend, and the friend 
of each of you, and next to your fathers and mothers I hope 
you will learn to esteem me as one of your best friends, and 
treat me accordingly. It will be understood that this is a 
democratic school, in which all the pupils are equal, and no 
one can claim any special or exclusive rights or privileges. 
There will be no high and no low among you, but all will stand 
upon the same level, each one being at liberty to excel the 
others in good conduct and in acquiring knowledge by being 
more studious and diligent. Knowledge is acquired only 
by effort, and you will find some rough places and difficult 
problems as you progress with your studies, and I hope you 
will desire to gain all you can during the time I shall be with 
you ; and in order that you may do so, it will be a pleasure 
for me to help any of you along who may desire it, out of 
the regular school hours. 

" I now callyour attention to another subject of some im- 
portance, which, however, is only an incident to the main 
purpose of the school. I refer to the government of the 
school. It is obvious to all of you that in order to prose- 
cute your studies successfully some rules of order must be 
observed so as to avoid confusion and constant interruption, 
and the question arises, What rules are necessary to secure 
this object, and who shall make these rules ? I have said 
that this was to be a democratic school, and that I do not 
come here to tyrannize over you, and now I propose that 
you shall be your own legislators and governors, and estab- 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 



275 



lish for yourselves the rules by which you are to be governed. 
These should be few and simple and reasonable, and I will 
proceed to suggest such as I, from my experience and ob- 
servation, deem necessary, and you will each vote for or 
against them according to your own individual judgment, 
and if any of you deem any proposed rule unnecessary or 
otherwise objectionable, you will be at liberty to state your 
objections freely, and it is my desire that you should do so." 

A few simple rules were then proposed and adopted by a 
unanimous vote of the pupils who were old enough to un- 
derstand them, and a more orderly, well-behaved school 
than this it would have been hard to find. It was truly a 
self-governed and well-governed school, and the progress 
made in the studies pursued was very satisfactory. 

The pupils were informed that they were expected not 
only to exercise and cultivate the memory, by committing 
the rules of arithmetic, grammar, and their lessons in geog- 
raphy and history, but also to enlarge and improve their un- 
derstanding by searching out and endeavoring to comprehend 
the reason of every rule or proposition contained in the 
books they were studying, and that they ought to know the 
signification of every word and the meaning of every sen- 
tence read by them ; that every word, every letter and figure, 
and every mark printed in the books they used had some 
meaning which they ought to understand, and that every 
reading lesson contained some relation of facts, or instruc- 
tion in arts, science, or morals, which it would be beneficial 
for them to comprehend. 

The reading-book of the most advanced class was " The 
English Reader." The class, being called up for exercise in 
reading, were questioned in the following manner : " What 
book have you ?" Answer, "'The English Reader.' " "Why 
is it called the English Reader ?" None of the class could 
answer. I explained that it was called a reader because it 
was a book containing lessons for their instruction and ex- 



276 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



ercise in reading ; and it was called the English reader be- 
cause its contents were in the English language. I then 
called their attention to the observations on the principles of 
good reading contained in the " Introduction," explaining 
their importance and the necessity of studying them atten- 
tively, and proceeded to ask them questions in regard to the 
several divisions of the book into parts, chapters, and sec- 
tions, and what was indicated by each, to which no intelli- 
gent answer could be elicited. After explaining that the 
book is divided into two principal parts, one composed of 
pieces in prose and the other of pieces in poetry ; that the 
chapters were the divisions of these several parts according 
to the general character of the pieces embraced in each ; 
that the sections divided the chapters into pieces, and that 
the pieces were divided into verses or paragraphs, which 
were numbered consecutively by Arabic figures, the chapters 
and sections being numbered by Roman numerals, and the 
meaning of all these terms being made plain to their com- 
prehension, we proceeded with our first reading lesson. 

The pupil standing at the head of the class reads the 
heading of Chapter I., " Select Sentences and Paragraphs," 
and the question is asked, " What do these words mean ?" 
No intelligent answer can be obtained, though there are 
pupils in the class who have read the book through several 
times. I explain what these words indicate, and point out 
the. necessity of constant reference to the dictionary. This 
pupil proceeds to read the first paragraph of section 1 : 
" Diligence, industry, and proper improvement of time are 
material duties of the young." The class is then asked to 
define the words diligence, industry, improvement, and duties, 
and by the aid of " Johnson's Dictionary" their several defi- 
nitions are ascertained. They are then asked why these 
should be regarded as material duties of the young, and 
especially what advantages they themselves may expect to 
derive from the faithful performance of them. The second 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OE PREVENTING CRIME. 



277 



pupil in the class then reads the next paragraph : " The ac- 
quisition of knowledge is one of the most honorable occu- 
pations of youth." The words knowledge, honorable, and 
occupations are then defined, and the sentiment contained in 
this paragraph is commented upon, and the uses of knowl- 
edge indicated so as to impress them upon their minds. 
Thus as each paragraph of the lesson is read it is followed 
by definitions of the principal words, and practical observa- 
tions upon the sentiment it contains or the moral it inculcates. 
Examples were given, and the way to acquire knowledge 
pointed out, and the pupil was then required, as far as possi- 
ble,, to find out everything for himself. In every branch of 
learning the teaching was equally thorough ; and it was very 
soon apparent that the scholars were deeply interested in the 
studies they were pursuing, and trying to make the best use 
of their time. After continuing in the course indicated for 
a time, they came to their lessons prepared to answer such 
questions as were naturally suggested by the subject of them, 
with such intelligence and appreciation as showed that their 
understanding and moral perceptions had been opened and 
were being developed. During portions of several succeed- 
ing years I was engaged in teaching in public and private 
schools, pursuing the same method, and with similar satis- 
factory results. I have visited many public schools since 
that, and observed the systems of teaching adopted in them, 
and have seldom found any attempt made to reach the un- 
derstanding, or cultivate the moral faculties of the learners, 
and I have found but few teachers in our primary schools 
who were capable of doing so. 

In the higher institutions of learning intellectual educa- 
tion has been the chief and almost the exclusive aim, and 
the value and power of moral education have been ignored 
or not properly estimated. Referring to the comparative 
value of intellectual and moral education, Dr. Buchanan 
says, " You will agree with me that it is not a debatable 

24 



278 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



question whether a man's moral or intellectual life is of the 
greatest value, for happiness is as high above intelligence as 
the heavens above the earth ; nor is it at all debatable whether 
it were better for our country to be filled with shrewd and 
intelligent scoundrels or with good but ignorant men. Ig- 
norance is a trivial matter in comparison to crime, and in- 
tellectual shrewdness is no compensation for the loss of vir- 
tue and happiness. I claim therefore that moral education, 
in its highest sense, is incomparably more important than 
intellectual education, and as our educational systems have 
heretofore been not moral but intellectual, they are but left- 
handed affairs, and have yet to acquire their strong right 
arm. ... If we could educate men forever on the intellec- 
tual plan, and if there could be no moral element in the edu- 
cation, they would be no better, no happier, in the end; 
there would be as much of fraud and strife, murder and 
misery, as much of poverty, despair, and suicide as when 
we began. Two of the most intellectual, brilliant, and edu- 
cated men I have ever known terminated their lives by their 
own hands, because all their intelligence brought them no 
happiness : their lives were hollow mockeries ; and just such 
a despairing mockery is that splendid civilization in which 
literature, art, science, machinery, and architecture make an 
outward display, while the whiskey-shop, the street mob, the 
workhouse, the penitentiary, the police court, the foundling 
hospital, and the insane asylum tell the inside story. Amid 
the brilliant civilization of Paris there are to-day many 
thousands of criminals. . . . The laborers of Europe, living 
on one to three dollars a week, are kept in squalid ignorance, 
and their bread is taken by taxes to feed four million men 
who live only for the purpose of homicide by bullet and 
bayonet. The great nations of Europe devote their wealth 
to standing armies and the debts of war ; and while they 
profess to represent the highest civilization of Chris- 
tendom, which professes allegiance to the law of love, 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 279 

they live as brigands do, with their swords pointed at each 
others' throats, every one of them believing that if they 
could not defend themselves, their so-called Christian neigh- 
bors would invade, conquer, rob, and enslave them. Each 
nation thus declares that it considers its neighbors an organ- 
ized banditti, and this universal opinion must have some 
foundation. Gloomy as it seems, this is the universal con- 
dition which is now and ever shall be, unless moral educa- 
tion can change the scene." 

" All educational reform," says Dr. Buchanan, " must fail 
unless we have good teachers ; but with a superior corps of 
well-paid teachers, who consecrate themselves for life to 
their business, and have all the necessary appliances, I 
claim that we can accomplish the moral regeneration of 
mankind by means which have been already tried and. 
worked successfully. I do not mean by the ordinary appli- 
ances, for they are notorious failures. We have in use four 
methods of moral education: 1, homilies by text-book and 
lecture ; 2, good advice ; 3, scolding ; 4, punishment. 
These methods are in use everywhere, and are everywhere 
failures. The bad boy hears the virtues talked about in 
homilies until he is tired of it. He gets good advice when 
he is doing right, and a double dose of good advice when 
he is doing wrong. But it is very rare to find anybody who 
would thank you for good advice, or who is willing to act 
upon it. The man who really knows how to appreciate 
good advice and to act on it is already so good that he sel- 
dom needs it. If he desires it he does not need it, and if 
he needs it very badly he does not desire it, but heartily re- 
sents it. The bad boy rejects advice with contempt, and re- 
ceives a liberal supply of scolding, which makes him sullen, 
and so wicked that for the next offence he is whipped and 
left among the debasing influences of hatred and fear. 

" Moral education is the reverse of this. It takes in crim- 
inals and turns them out good citizens by the familiar means 



280 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

that common sense recommends, of placing them in a moral 
atmosphere and keeping them in it until their whole nature 
is changed, just as men are made criminals by placing them 
in a criminal atmosphere and keeping them there until they 
are saturated with baseness. The same amount of moral 
power which can take criminal youths and elevate them to 
respectability can take the youths of virtuous families and 
elevate them to pre-eminence in virtue. It is no exaggera- 
tion to say that the schools which have reformed criminals 
have demonstrated an amount of power sufficient for the 
world's regeneration if rightly applied." 

In a preceding chapter, in discussing the proper treatment 
of crime, we have shown how this moral power has been 
applied in reformatory institutions, and with what wonder- 
ful success. If, then, it is capable of changing the character 
of criminal youth and elevating them into a condition of 
virtuous respectability, it cannot be doubted that such 
youth might have been saved from crime by a similar 
power judiciously exercised while they were yet innocent 
and free from the contamination of crime. While moral 
education is of the highest importance, every sort of knowl- 
edge that can contribute to the welfare of the learner, or 
shield him from evil, should be communicated as soon as 
he is able to comprehend and apply it. In treating of ig- 
norance as a cause of crime, we adverted to the helpless 
condition of a human being when born into this world, and 
to the fact that his origin and his surroundings during the 
period of infancy and early youth are matters of which he 
could by no possibility have any prevision or control. He 
may be the child of noble and virtuous or of debased and 
criminal parents. He may be born the inheritor of wealth 
and luxury or of squalid poverty, of health or disease. The 
laws prohibit no class or condition from propagating their 
species. The drunkard, the thief, the scrofulous and the 
epileptic, the weak-minded and the pauper, the lame, the 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OE PREVENTING CRIME. 2 8l 

halt, and the blind, may multiply and replenish the earth in 
marital relations, and their right to leave a progeny behind 
them, to suffer and be a burden and a curse to themselves 
and the community, is unchallenged. The mean and unde- 
sirable of our domestic animals are weeded out and are not 
allowed to multiply, and, by the skilful application of scien- 
tific principles, the various races of these useful creatures are 
vastly improved from age to age and their value increased. 
But any suggestion that the human race might be improved 
by incapacitating the vicious and criminal from multiplying 
their kind is met with superstitious horror, or with ridicule. 
Dr. Scouller advocates physical disqualification of criminals 
as the most sure and effective mode of preventing crime by 
stopping production, and thus eliminating the criminal ele- 
ment from society. Other distinguished men have ad- 
vocated the same remedy, and there can be no doubt of the 
efficacy of this remedy if the proper subjects of it could 
always be distinguished and the application be made at the 
proper time. But the difficulties in the way of its proper 
administration will probably prevent its becoming popular 
or practical. The perpetual restraint of those who prove to 
be incorrigible may, however, accomplish the same end by 
milder means. The children now in being, whatever class 
they may belong to, are to be educated and taken care of 
and not only saved, as far as practicable, from becoming 
criminal, but made actively useful. The child's education 
and the formation of its character begins before birth. 
Whatever of good or ill, of pain or pleasure, has created 
any emotion in the breast of the mother, and whatever ap- 
petites or passions or ambitions have been indulged by her 
during the formative period prior to its separation from the 
silent tabernacle in which its inceptive life began, have had 
an influence in determining what manner of person it shall 
be. If the mother has been educated as she should have 
been, and instructed in the duties and responsibilities of 

24* 



2 82 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

motherhood in all its stages, and is surrounded, as she 
should be, with favorable conditions, her offspring may be 
what a mother most desires, well-born, with a sound physi- 
cal frame and well-formed brain ; but if she has been left in 
ignorance of the duties and responsibilities pertaining to the 
great trust she assumes, or if adverse circumstances have 
prevented her from performing her maternal duties, the 
child of her love will need regeneration and a new birth, 
and may be a curse instead of a blessing to her and to the 
world. 

In treating of ignorance as a cause of crime, we have 
referred to the ruinous consequences to the young resulting 
from abuse of the most delicate organs of the human body, 
and indicated the necessity of early instruction in regard to 
their uses and abuses. The extent of the evil adverted to is 
known and appreciated by but few outside of the medical 
profession and those who read the warnings contained in 
medical books, but by them its prevalence and ruinous 
effects are well understood. All necessary information and 
instruction upon this subject may and should be given by 
parents or teachers before any vicious habits can be formed, 
and may be communicated privately, and with such delicacy 
as not to offend against any rule of modesty and decency ; 
and parents should be made to understand that it cannot be 
omitted without great peril of irremediable injury to physical 
and mental health. Millions have impaired their physical 
health and thousands have been rendered insane through 
ignorance of that which every youth must be taught in 
order to be safe from these disastrous results. Dumb 
animals, left to the guidance of instinct, are free from this 
vice, as well as from many other vicious practices that de- 
base and brutalize humanity and tend to degenerate the 
race, physically, mentally, and morally. 

The value of industrial education in all our reformatory 
institutions, without which no intellectual or moral training 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 283 

would be effectual in producing reformation, is so well un- 
derstood and everywhere admitted that no argument is re- 
quired in its favor. 

Mr. Charlton, superintendent of the reform school for 
boys in Indiana, justly and truly says that " Labor is the 
most blessed duty ever enjoined upon man, and should be 
performed with alacrity and with joy. At its magical touch 
springs into existence not only all the wealth peculiar to 
civilization, but all that adds to the comforts and luxuries 
of life. Labor not only conduces to happiness, but it is 
essential to the welfare of our race. No one, however well 
grounded in Christian faith, or however highly cultivated 
and refined, can live a truly moral life and be idle. The 
workshops of the devil open the moment those of legiti- 
mate and useful toil are closed. Dissipation hides its face 
in the presence of honest toil." Report of Conference of 
Charities, etc., 1885. 

The restless activity of youth will not endure idleness, 
and if not directed into proper channels this activity will 
assuredly work itself out through improper ones. If igno- 
rance is a cause of crime, the converse of this proposition is 
true, and knowledge is a preventive of crime. While the 
ignorant are not necessarily vicious, nor the educated neces- 
sarily virtuous, yet if it were not true that education tends y 
to make men better, the State would have comparatively 
little interest in educating its people, and its duty to support 
schools for that purpose would not be apparent. But if 
common observation did not satisfactorily indicate that the 
tendency of such education as our schools have afforded, 
defective as it unquestionably is, has been to diminish crime, 
the statistics of illiteracy in its relation to crime incontesta- 
bly prove this to be true. By the report of the United States 
Commissioner of Education for 1872, it appears that the ag- 
gregate number of prisoners in 1870 was 110,538; that the 
a gg re gate of those who could read and write was 82,812, 



284 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

and the aggregate number of those who could neither read 
nor write was 21,650, and of those who could barely read 
but not write, 5931; total illiterates, 27,581, or twenty-five 
per cent, of the entire number of prisoners. These returns 
are culled from seventeen States, fourteen of these being 
Western or Middle States. 

The census returns for 1870 show that in New York and 
Pennsylvania the illiterate in the entire population amounted 
to only four per cent., while the illiterate prisoners amounted 
to thirty-three per cent, of all the prisoners, and the very 
deficient included sixty per cent, of them. Thus it appears 
that four per cent, of the population furnished thirty-three 
per cent, of the prisoners, or twelve times as many as an 
equal number who were not illiterate. 

In the central West three and a half per cent, of the 
population was returned as illiterate, and forty-six per cent, 
of the criminals illiterate, or thirteen times their proportion 
of criminals in proportion to their numbers. 

In the far West and the Pacific section the returns give 
three per cent, illiterate, who furnished thirty-one per cent, 
of the criminals, or tenfold their proportion. In three of 
the Southern States twenty-two per cent, illiterate furnished 
sixty per cent, of the criminals. 

These facts are gleaned from a paper by the late Bishop 
Harris, of Michigan, read before the Conference of Charities, 
etc., in 1885, on the subject of "Compulsory Education as 
a Means of preventing Crime." In this article he commends, 
among other educational agencies, the kindergarten, and re- 
marks that " It is clear, when we study the kindergarten, 
and come to understand its methods of utilizing play, that 
healthy amusement among young people could be made 
educative of the social sense more largely than it is, and 
thus be another preventive of crime." 

He also advocates the industrial education of youth. " In- 
dustrial education," says Bishop Harris, " in the form of the 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 285 

school, since the practical abolition of apprenticeship, is also 
important. The manual training school and the school shop, 
modelled on the Russian or on the Swedish plan, ought to 
be established to a limited extent in all our cities, and made 
free like our common schools. They give admirable in- 
struction in wood-working and in metal-working," and he 
concludes by saying, " Compulsory education, in the forms 
of the common school, the kindergarten, the industrial art 
school, may furnish us the most valuable preventive agencies 
against crime." 

In the article referred to, Bishop Harris refers to the in- 
creasing growth of cities in our country, due to the inven- 
tion of labor-saving machinery, as one of the causes of 
crime, and remarks that " Increasing urban growth for the 
most part furnishes us our social problems." One of our 
greatest statesmen of a former age, deprecating the increase 
and growth of large cities in our country, characterized 
them as " sores upon the body politic." The deplorable 
condition of many of the youth in our large commercial 
towns has been adverted to, more particularly of those who 
are compelled to subsist on garbage or by thieving; and 
certainly no one who is susceptible to compassion for the 
unfortunate can contemplate their condition without feeling 
an earnest desire that some practicable means maybe provided 
for their redemption. With the example before us of what 
reform schools are accomplishing, can there be any doubt 
that this may be accomplished by compulsory education 
and proper discipline ? The .way is simple, rational,' and 
effective, and only requires wise legislation and active ex- 
ertion to accomplish it. If " there is more joy in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine 
just persons that need no repentance," what rejoicing would 
there be, both among the angels in heaven and the righteous 
on the earth, when the thousands of city Arabs and hood- 
lums, as they are commonly denominated, are brought to 



286 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

repentance and good lives through the instrumentalities 
provided by the wise and good, whose names are already- 
written in the book of life. 

In order to secure teachers who are qualified for the work, 
training schools should be established in which everything 
that pertains to the government of schools and the proper 
mode of giving instruction should be thoroughly taught, 
and none should be permitted to become instructors in our 
public schools or reformatories but men and women of such 
character and acquirements that they shall deserve, and be 
capable of commanding, the confidence and love of their 
pupils. In patience, gentleness, tact, judgment, candor, in- 
telligence, and moral character every teacher should be a 
model worthy of the imitation of youth. The silent influ- 
ence of the teacher's character is more potent in moral edu- 
cation than the most admirable oral instruction, but when 
these are conjoined their power is irresistible. Wendell 
Phillips once said that " Men succeed less by their talents 
than by their character. There were scores of men a hun- 
dred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. 
He outvies and overrides them all by the influence of his 
character." And who shall say at this day that the nobility 
of Washington's character, commanding as it did the respect 
and admiration of his country's enemies as well as of its 
friends, did not turn the scale of fortune in our favor in the 
doubtful struggle for liberty, and secure our national inde- 
pendence ? If a teacher is discovered by his pupils to be 
deficient in any of the essential qualifications required, his 
usefulness will be impaired or destroyed, and his influence 
injurious instead of beneficial. 

For the purpose of furnishing a supply of competent 
teachers for the public schools of Michigan, a State Normal 
School has been established at Ypsilanti, the exclusive pur- 
pose of which, as expressed in the act creating it, is " the 
instruction of persons, both male and female, in the art of 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 287 

teaching, and in all the various branches that pertain to a 
good common-school education. Also to give instruction 
in the mechanic arts, and in the arts of husbandry and agri- 
cultural chemistry ; in the fundamental laws of the United 
States, and in what regards the rights and duties of citizens." 

Training schools for teachers have also been established 
in connection with the higher schools in cities, and it is an 
encouraging fact that much progress has been made in this 
direction, and that great progress has been made in placing 
in our schools a much better qualified class of teachers than 
those who formerly occupied those positions. The example 
of Dr. Wichern in qualifying teachers for reformatories in 
Germany, as related in the " American Cyclopaedia," is very 
suggestive on this subject. The necessity of a supply of 
teachers led Dr. Wichern to establish at the Rauhes Haus 
(some account of which we have given in a former chapter) 
what he denominated the " Institute of Brothers," intended 
for the gratuitous training of those who would become 
teachers, " elder brothers," and " haus fathers" of the chil- 
dren, or to fill situations elsewhere requiring the same pa- 
tience, knowledge, and tact. They were at first attached to 
the families as assistants, and after an apprenticeship they 
undertook, in rotation, the direction, each brother, before 
the course of four years expired, having been twice in 
charge of each of the families, of which there were fourteen 
of vagrant children, occupying as many houses. 

The establishment of reformatories in other parts of Ger- 
many and Europe, on a similar plan to that of the Rauhes 
Haus, caused a demand for these trained teachers, and they 
were also wanted for superintendents of hospitals, prisons, 
charitable institutions, etc. 

The success of the Rauhes Haus as a reformatory was 
greater than that of any other institution of the kind then ex- 
isting, the relapse into vice of the pupils after leaving it not 
exceeding four or five per cent. In 1852, Dr. Wichern was 



288 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

appointed by the Prussian government director of prisons 
for the kingdom, and the wardens and overseers of the pris- 
ons and bridewells were all selected from the graduates of 
the " Institute of Brothers," who had been specially trained 
for this work. 

When we consider the incalculable importance of so 
educating our children as to fortify them against the seduc- 
tions of vice and temptations to crime, and arm them for the 
conflicts and burdens they will have to encounter, as well as 
to fit them for the higher enjoyments of righteous and pure 
lives, the necessity of a thorough training of those who are 
to be their instructors is too apparent for argument. 

We would especially emphasize the importance of indus- 
trial education. An editorial in the Globe-Democrat says, 
" The great discovery of our age is industrial education. 
Its advantages prove large in all ways. It gives every 
child a chance to find out what it is fitted to do best. It 
enables every child to grow up able to earn a living. It re- 
lieves the professions of those utterly unfit by nature for 
professional life. It destroys the unworthy prejudice against 
manual labor. It brings all grades of society nearer to- 
gether. It develops a hand-cunning or handicraft that re- 
lieves the brain from over-use and exhaustion. It enables 
brain-workers to secure easy reaction from brain toil. It 
encourages industry and saves many from falling into crime. 
Industry underlies moral behavior. Education of the brain 
can never be a perfect affair without hand skill." 

In the education and treatment of children and youths, 
both parents and teachers ought fully to understand all the 
tendencies to vice and crime which they may have inherited 
or acquired, and sedulously endeavor to protect them against 
their development. As soon as a child is old enough to un- 
derstand the nature and possible effects of ancestral taint, he 
should be warned of his danger, and encouraged and advised 
to refrain from any conduct or course of life which might 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING CRIME. 289 

develop or strengthen the inherited infirmity. Towards such 
the utmost caution and prudence are required. Their moral 
perceptions should be cultivated and the principles of right 
and justice made clear to their understanding at an early- 
period of their lives, and the contrasts of good and evil, and 
their effects respectively in bringing happiness or misery to 
men and women, should be sharply presented to their con- 
sciousness. They should never be permitted to entertain 
the thought that they are victims of an adverse fate, and 
that their inherited appetites or passions cannot be resisted 
and overcome ; but however charitably we may look upon 
their faults, they ought to be taught that they are to be re- 
garded as fully responsible for the wrongs they do as a 
natural and necessary consequence thereof. If such an in- 
heritance may. in some sense be regarded as a fatality, it 
does not follow that it cannot be eradicated or controlled by 
suitable training and culture. On the contrary, the results 
of such training and culture in the reform schools, both of 
this country and of Europe, conclusively prove that from 
ninety to ninety-five per cent, of the criminal youths may 
be cured by the methods adopted for that purpose ; and as 
knowledge advances it is reasonable to conclude that these 
methods may be improved so as to become still more effec- 
tive. The power of human kindness and love, directed by 
wisdom and stimulated by a broad, all-embracing philan- 
thropy, has never been so intelligently appreciated and 
practically applied in any former period of the world's 
history as within the last half of the present century. 

There are still stupendous evils to be eradicated and 
threatened evils to be averted, but the spirit of our 
people, which has been awakened to a comprehension of 
their magnitude and importance, we may well hope will 
move forward in the work of reformation, regardless of 
hoary traditions and superstitions, until life shall be made 
a blessing to all and a curse to none. 
n t 25 



20y PREVENTION OP CRIME. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PREVENTION OF INTEMPERANCE. 

We have treated of intemperance as one of the principal 
proximate causes of crime ; and assuming our premises to 
be true, it is obvious that if intemperance can be prevented, 
it will tend, in a great degree, to lessen the volume of crime. 
The simplest rules of sanitary science teach us that the most 
effectual way of preventing disease is by removing its 
causes. But while a vast majority of all enlightened 
peoples deplore the evils growing out of the intemperate 
use of intoxicating liquors, the question, How shall it be 
prevented ? remains a problem yet to be solved. If all who 
regard it as an evil were agreed upon some practical mode 
of effecting the desired end, its solution would be easy 
enough. But herein lies the difficulty. Some propose one 
means and some another, and the diversity of opinion 
among the friends of temperance prevents the application 
of any effectual remedy. . One of the greatest obstacles, 
however, to the adoption of any mode of prevention is the 
fact that there is a wealthy and powerful class of men en- 
gaged in distilling and brewing, who, from motives of pe- 
cuniary interest, are opposed to all restrictions upon the 
manufacture or traffic, and a very active, energetic, and 
politically influential class in every town and city who are 
engaged in the liquor trade, all of whom, from the same 
motive, are opposed to any measures for its suppression. 
These men, though constituting but a lean minority of 
voters at the elections, by their activity and zeal, and the 
political influence they are capable of exerting under our 
corrupt system of caucusing and bargaining, very often 
control the nominations to office and influence legislation. 



THE PREVENTION OF INTEMPERANCE. 



29I 



They well understand the political machinery in their sev- 
eral localities, and the vulnerable points in the characters of 
leading politicians of all political parties, and how to bring 
" the proper influences," as they are derisively called, to 
bear to prevent adverse legislation. They do not so much 
object to paying a tax to the government for a license, and 
to be protected in their business, as to any measure looking 
to its suppression. 

Some of the friends of temperance advocate the immediate 
and entire prohibition of the liquor traffic by legislation. 
Others, believing this to be impracticable in the present 
state of public opinion, favor taxing and regulating the 
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, under a sys- 
tem of " high license" and strict accountability for all dam- 
ages arising from intoxication caused by the licensees, and 
prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to minors and persons 
addicted to drunkenness, and forbidding such sale on certain 
days and times. 

Temperance associations have existed for many years, 
and have made noble and praiseworthy efforts to reform in- 
ebriates and stay the tide of intemperance by warning, ad- 
monition, and diffusing information upon the nature and ex- 
tent of this great evil. Statutes have been enacted in some 
of the States forbidding the traffic under heavy penalties, 
but these have been evaded or openly disregarded to a great 
extent, especially in communities where the public sentiment 
has been strong against prohibition. 

Even in Maine, where these statutes have existed for a 
longer period than in any other State, and where the most 
strenuous efforts have been made to enforce them, it has 
been boldly asserted by some that there has been fully as 
much liquor drunk as if the prohibitory statute had not 
existed, and that statistics have shown no diminution of 
crime resulting from the prohibitory law, while others claim 
that the law has been generally obeyed. In some States 



292 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



local option laws have been enacted, under which the 
electors of the respective counties are authorized to deter- 
mine, by a majority of their votes, whether any intoxicating 
liquors shall be manufactured or sold within their limits. 
These laws are based upon the assumption that if a majority 
of the electors are shown by their votes to be in favor of 
prohibiting the traffic within their territory, they will see 
that they are enforced and the traffic therein prevented. 
But unless the principle of prohibition is generally 
adopted throughout the State, the difficulties are still 
greater than they would be if the traffic were everywhere 
forbidden by a general law. A few isolated counties in 
which prohibition has been adopted, surrounded by coun- 
ties in which the traffic is licensed under the general law, 
are open on all sides to invasion by habitual law-breakers, 
while their own inhabitants, living near their respective 
boundaries, can easily pass over where liquor is freely- sold 
" according to law," and gratify their appetites without re- 
straint. Until the great enormity of the evil and the over- 
whelming necessity for effective measures for the suppression 
of intemperance is more generally understood and appre- 
ciated, prohibitory laws, whether general or particular will 
be of little avail. 

Temperance societies have accomplished much good by 
enlightening the community in regard to the effects of strong 
drink upon the minds and bodies of individuals, and in de- 
teriorating the race physically, morally, and intellectually, and 
in establishing a strong public sentiment in some States and 
localities in favor of legal prohibition and the enforcement 
of prohibitory laws. The ministers of religion have preached 
against intemperance from their pulpits, while a large propor- 
tion of them have indulged in the habitual use of intoxicants, 
and thousands of their church members not only use the 
fatal poison habitually, without ministerial rebuke or ad- 
monition, but many of them are manufacturers of or dealers 



THE PREVENTION OF INTEMPERANCE. 



293 



in intoxicating drinks ; and intoxicating wines are dispensed 
by gospel ministers to the members of their churches in ad- 
ministering the communion service, as an emblem of the 
blood that washes away the sins of the penitent, — an em- 
blem of blood surely, and an efficient cause of sin and crime 
and the destruction of all that renders life of any value. 

Thus, notwithstanding all the efforts which have been 
made to suppress intemperance, statistics seem to show a 
constant and steady increase of intemperance in all civilized 
countries of the globe, and the prospects for the future are 
indeed gloomy. 

A few years ago the London Times said, " In our time we 
have suffered more from the intemperance of our people 
than from war, pestilence, and famine combined." In March, 
1 88 1, the same paper said, " Something must be done to re- 
deem the nation from the slough of drunkenness in which it 
is now wallowing. The drink bill of the country has enor- 
mously increased since i860, with multiplied horrors of every 
kind coming from drunkenness. In that year the drink bill 
was £86,897,683 [or $434,488,415]. In 1879 the cost of the 
liquor consumed in the kingdom was £147,288,760 [or 
$736,443,800]." The Times further said, " Suppose an un- 
expected visitation of prosperity, how high would the total 
stand in the last year of the century? If there be any 
probability one way or the other, it is that the year 1900 
will be as much above 1880 as that is above i860, and that 
the drink bill will then be £246,000,000 [or $1,230,000,000]. 
For the whole population of these isles the average expendi- 
ture in drink is more than £3 [or $15] for every man, woman, 
and child, and more than £15 [or $75] for each family. It 
is vastly more than the public revenue, vastly more than the 
most inflated and extraordinary expenditure we have had for 
twenty years. It is more than ten times as much as is spent 
for the poor, watched by economists with such jealous eyes. 
As for the revenue of the Church of England, which many 

25* 



294 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



call monstrous, and which certainly is exceptional in com- 
parison with other churches and religious communities, if it 
were brought to the hammer to-morrow — glebes, rent- 
charges, parsonages, churches, episcopal and capitular in- 
comes, everything down to church furniture and parish 
stock of vestments — it would scarcely fetch the amount of 
last year's drink bill. The workingman grudges a few 
pence for the education of his children, and spends often as 
many shillings in drink. He will not lay up as much as a 
shilling a week to provide for probable sickness and inevitable 
old age, but he spends perhaps ten times that amount in beer 
and spirits. But he is not the greatest sinner ; far from it. His 
betters — lay, spiritual, professional, or trading — are generally 
far worse than he is. The gentleman in the pulpit, who 
delivers weekly diatribes against drunkenness and improvi- 
dence, . . . often spends ten times as much, though he 
really wants it less. It is a very ordinary thing for the wine 
and beer bills to amount to £^o [$250] out of a total ex- 
penditure of £500 [#2500]." 

" The testimony of the church," says Dr. Buchanan, " as 
given by a committee of the Lower House of Convocation 
in 1869, is that ' a careful estimate of the mortality occasioned 
by intemperance in the United Kingdom, including the lives 
of innocent persons cut short by the drunkenness of others, 
places the mighty sacrifice at fifty thousand persons every 
year, — a number twice as great as that which perished on 
both sides upon the fatal field of Waterloo.' This statement 
is very moderate. Dr. Norman Kerr, unwilling to believe 
in such fatality, more recently investigated the question, and 
decided that the mortality directly produced by alcohol is 
greatly above a hundred thousand annually." The horrible 
intemperance of Great Britain during the last ten years has 
been fully displayed by the calculation of William Hoyle, 
who shows that the expenditure for drink is more than 
twice the entire rental of the kingdom. In Ireland, with far 



THE PREVENTION OF INTEMPERANCE. 



295 



lower rents, the average amount expended on liquors in ten 
years was £13,823,162, and the total rental £11,518,392. 

In continental Europe the steady increase of intemper- 
ance is shown by statistics to be equally alarming. In a 
former part of this work its desolating progress among our 
own people is shown. All other causes of moral degeneracy 
increase the flow of alcohol, and they reciprocally act to- 
gether as cause and effect. " Brutality/' says Dr. Buchanan, 
" demands alcohol, and alcohol feeds brutality, and hence 
they increase together. . . . This is illustrated by the sta- 
tistics of the State of Maine under a prohibitory liquor law 
which is commonly called the ' Maine Law.' 

"From 185 1 to 1880 the population increased fourteen 
per. cent., or one-seventh, — from 587,680 to 648,945. During 
this period, in spite of temperance laws (enacted in 1852), 
churches, and New England education, the number of crimes 
has tripled, — the State-prison convicts, eighty-seven in 1851, 
were two hundred and sixty-seven in 1880. The high crimes 
of murder, murderous assault, arson, rape, robbery, and piracy 
increased from fourteen to sixty-seven. Divorce, insanity, 
and suicide have also largely increased during this period. . . . 
Thus enforced temperance has failed as signally as the church 
and the school to arrest the downward tendency." 

As reciprocal causes of moral and physical degeneracy 
Dr. Buchanan enumerates the four following as the most 
prominent : 

1. That "the whole civilized world has been gradually 
leaving the country and crowding into the large cities, in 
which the race degenerates so rapidly that, if it were not for 
the health and vigor of the country, the population of the 
civilized nations would actually decline, the deaths exceed- 
ing the births. With all their polish and intellectuality, 
great cities are known to be great ulcers, and their intel- 
lectuality has no more power to save them than sunshine 
has to prevent putrefaction. 



296 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



2. " The conscription of the entire population for military 
service, the army, being a rebellion against the Divine law, 
a school of pessimism that debases the moral nature and, 
like a malignant tumor, absorbs the life-blood of the nation, 
driving the poor by exhausting taxation into pauperism and 
prostitution." This applies more especially to the countries 
of Europe, but its consequences reach us through the 
flood of emigration which is flowing in upon our shores 
from the most ignorant and impoverished populations of 
the Old World. 

3. " The third cause is the industrial ignorance of laborers, 
which disqualifies them from profitable employments, and 
perpetuates their poverty by the enormous competition of 
hungry, unskilled laborers. 

4. " The fourth cause is the selfish competition and gam- 
bling commerce, in which capital, in a few skilful hands, 
grows with magical rapidity by dividends, monopolies, and 
speculation, while labor, unenlightened, must struggle de- 
spairingly (as it is in excess) for a bare subsistence." 

" The deep underlying cause of all," says Dr. Buchanan, 
" is found in the organization of society and all its institu- 
tions upon a basis of pure and intense selfishness, instead 
of the principles taught by Jesus. Life is altogether a des- 
perate competitive struggle, — a struggle to grasp, monopo- 
lize, and indirectly enslave. 

" For none of those great evils does our common educa- 
tion offer or suggest any remedy. It develops no high prin- 
ciples ; it undermines more than it assists religion ; it har- 
monizes with selfish ostentation and ambition ; it increases 
the separation and alienation of classes ; it aggravates dis- 
content with the existing social orders ; it stimulates wild, 
pessimistic speculations ; furnishes intellect to journalism 
and politics, and incendiary leadership to discontented 
masses. 

" The true full-orbed education of the moral and indus- 



THE PREVENTION OE INTEMPERANCE. 



297 



trial faculties annihilates intemperance and vice, assures the 
prosperity of all, places the humblest laborer in the path 
that leads to comfort, intelligence, and happiness ; destroys 
the social alienation of classes and the consequent jealousies ; 
forbids all future turbulence, and elevates women above the 
sphere of prostitution ; restores integrity to governmental 
affairs, empties prisons and almshouses, unites industrial 
pursuits in co-operative and profitable systems of stability, 
. . . establishes the ideal republic, and prepares for the 
advent of the Kingdom of Heaven by removing every 
obstacle." 

If there is any system of education possible by which all 
or most of those great benefits can be gained, there is cer- 
tainly no conceivable blessing that can be of greater value 
to mankind. And what ground have we to hope for the 
elevation and improvement of the race, when all existing 
systems designed for that end have failed, if it is not in the 
adoption of a wiser and better system of education for the 
young ? Will moral and industrial education of the youth 
stay the tide of intemperance and vice and disperse the 
murky clouds of pollution that hang like a pall of moral 
death over the civilized world ? Education in all reforma- 
tory institutions is directed to making the recipients of it 
good and useful, self-respecting and self-sustaining, and their 
wonderful success in eradicating vicious tendencies and im- 
planting in their stead the elements of honesty, industry, 
and virtue is shown by the histories of those we have re- 
ferred to when considering the proper treatment of crime. 
In all these institutions, as we have seen, every pupil is in- 
structed in some useful industrial pursuit by which he can 
earn an honest living and lay the foundation of future suc- 
cess. He goes out into the world a skilled laborer, artisan, 
tradesman, or mechanic, whose services are in demand, and 
carries with him a certificate from his teachers that he may 
be safely trusted and employed. Without this industrial 



298 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



education, all the intellectual training he might receive, and 
all the moral precepts he might be taught, would not make 
him good, nor fortify him against the temptations to evil 
which he would have to encounter. Industrial education is 
at once the sword and shield which are put into the hands 
of every pupil on leaving a reformatory, with which to carve 
out character and acquire competency and ward off the as- 
saults of misfortune and vice, and no practical philanthropist 
or manager of a reformatory at this day would dream of ac- 
complishing the reformation of criminals, whether youth or 
adults, without a thorough training in some industrial pur- 
suit. Industry, wisely and intelligently applied to the 
benefit of ourselves and others, is a practical exercise of a 
high moral principle, which of itself affords happiness and 
strengthens virtue. To those who believe there are minis- 
tering angels in heaven, the thought that they derived no 
happiness from the execution of their missions of good to 
man would be repulsive. To be happy we must be actively 
engaged in doing good. 

The repugnance which many of the prisoners sent to the 
Elmira reformatory felt to becoming good when received 
at the institution was attended by an equal aversion to in- 
dustrial labor, and the same treatment which overcame this 
aversion overcame also their repugnance to becoming good 
men and useful citizens. 

An industrial and moral education equally practical and 
thorough for every child in the State, either at home or in 
our public schools, would, in the course of a few genera- 
tions, bring about such a vast improvement in the social 
condition and character of our people that intemperance 
would be effectually prohibited, and poverty, crime, and op- 
pression would not prevail. Partisanship for selfish ends, 
with all the corrupting appliances, falsehoods, deceits, and 
corruptions which are now almost universally resorted to 
for the purpose of gaining or continuing political power and 



THE PREVENTION OF INTEMPERANCE. 



299 



influence, would give place to a noble and generous strife in 
advancing the public good and securing the welfare and 
happiness of all. 

The Legislature of the State of Michigan has recently- 
incorporated into the statute relating to public instruction 
and primary schools a provision that, in addition to the 
other branches in which instruction is required to be given 
in the public schools of the State, instruction shall be given 
in physiology and hygiene, with a special reference to the 
nature of alcohol and narcotics, and their effects upon the 
human system. The text-books used for this purpose are 
required to give at least one-fourth of their space to the 
consideration of the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks 
and narcotics. These are wise and exceedingly important 
provisions, and if such instruction is thoroughly and intel- 
ligently given, its effects cannot but be salutary in a high 
degree. Hygiene — the art or science of preserving health 
— is a branch of knowledge that ought to be universally 
understood, but of which the great mass are generally but 
little informed, and even among the more intelligent its rules 
are habitually disregarded. The deleterious effects of alco- 
hol, tobacco, opium, and other poisonous substances upon 
the human system, and the dangerous consequences result- 
ing from their use even in the smallest quantities, if clearly 
pointed out and impressed upon the youthful mind before 
any appetite for them has been acquired or habit of using 
them formed, will, with proper moral and industrial training, 
operate as a protection and saving influence to the man 
through his entire life, and enable him to overcome even a 
strong inherited tendency to intemperance. 

Every means of prevention adopted by churches and 
temperance associations for reforming those who have al- 
ready become the slaves of strong drink should be con- 
tinued. They have accomplished much good in the past 
and may do more in the future, but the hope and trust of 



300 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



the true philanthropist and reformer must be based upon 
the educating of the young by instructing them in the prin- 
ciples and practice of temperance, morality, and industry. 
If our youth of both sexes shall be so educated, the senti- 
ment in favor of prohibition will become practically unani- 
mous when they become men and women, and laws forbid- 
ding the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquors for any 
other than medical and scientific purposes will be strictly 
enforced, without any formidable opposition. The causes 
of intemperance and vice will be understood and removed, 
and the disease prevented by removing them or contracting 
their influence. 

Such an education will put an end to ignorance and idle- 
ness, and expel avarice, cupidity, and selfish ambition, with 
the long dark list of crimes that follow in their train and 
cast their lurid shadows over the hearts of men and women 
throughout the civilized world. It will diffuse its healing 
influence over all nations, and bring peace and security in- 
stead of wars and tumults. It will broaden the sense of a 
common brotherhood, so that geographical lines shall no 
longer divide friends from foes, and standing armies to pro- 
tect the one by destroying the other no longer be supported 
by imposing excessive burdens upon industrious, peace- 
loving citizens. 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED ? 301 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW SHALL THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HAR- 
MONIZED AND THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THEM PREVENTED ? 

" Ye friends of truth, ye statesmen who survey 
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay; 
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 
Between a splendid and a happy land." 

We have said that there is no necessary conflict between 
capital and labor. The true interests of the capitalist and 
the laborer are identical, and what benefits the one should 
benefit the other. The man of wealth may increase his 
store of gold by disregarding the just rights of laboring 
men and women, but he can do so only by dwarfing his 
own soul and debasing his manhood, and losing thereby 
what is of infinitely more value than material wealth, his 
own self-respect and the right to claim the sincere respect 
of others. 

If all men had attained the requisite knowledge to per- 
ceive and the wisdom to be governed by that which is at 
once the greatest, most simple, most rational, and most sub- 
lime truth ever revealed or taught to man, — a truth which is 
upon so many lips, but really comprehended by so few,- — and 
of applying it to all the exigencies of social, political, and 
domestic life, there would be no difficulty in giving a satis- 
factory answer to this question. We have referred to this 
great truth as contained in the teachings of Confucius and 
of Jesus. It is the common interest and brotherhood of 
man, — the law of love, of peace, and of good-will among 
men, embracing those of all nations, tongues, and races 
upon the earth. It required a long period of time and of 
progression from a state of barbarism and semi-barbarism 

26 



302 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

before there were any capable of accepting it. It was not 
contained in the decalogue, which was supposed to have 
been written by the finger of the God of Israel on tablets 
of stone, and delivered to Moses amid clouds and thunders 
on Mount Sinai. The God whom that ancient people wor- 
shipped was the God of battles, who taught them to destroy 
other nations and peoples, and take possession of their lands 
and of their goods as an inheritance. " The Lord," says 
Moses, "is a man of war; the Lord is his name." The 
author of Exodus represents him as saying, " I will do 
terrible things ;" that he would drive out before them the 
Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the 
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebuzites, and would cut 
them off. Almost every European nation is at this moment 
prepared to make war upon its neighbor in the name of and 
under the guidance of the " God of battles." His law for 
the government of his own peculiar people demanded " life 
for life, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, 
stripe for stripe," and there are millions of people who claim 
to be enlightened and Christianized at the present day who 
yet do not seem to know that this law was abrogated by 
Jesus and superseded by another which is its opposite. 

The Israelites were a stiff-necked people, and, like too 
many of the present day, though veiy religious, were very 
full of evil. They were capable of slaying " every man his 
brother, and every man his companion, and every man his 
neighbor" at the command of Moses, in order to appease 
the fierce anger of their God " of battles" and of his servant 
Moses, because of their having worshipped the golden calf 
which Aaron, his priest, had made for them while his brother 
Moses was upon the mountain holding converse with the 
Lord. 

Love towards those deemed their enemies would have been 
opposed to the plans and purposes which were formed for 
their development and growth into a great and powerful 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED ? 303 

nation, and the attempt to promulgate such a law would 
have been treated with derision, or as the teaching of some 
strange god or false prophet. The most enlightened peoples 
were then ignorant, superstitious, barbarous, and cruel, and 
utterly incapable of understanding the gospel of peace and 
good will. More than thirty-three centuries have passed 
since that period, with ever-increasing means of mental, 
moral, and religious enlightenment and culture ; and truths 
of the most momentous importance to the welfare of man- 
kind have been evolved. 

The wise and good who have been able to perceive what 
is true, and to distinguish it from error, have had a double 
task to perform, — that of removing ancient and deep-rooted 
errors, and overturning systems of fraud and oppression 
against the most strenuous and determined opposition of 
those who were interested in maintaining existing institu- 
tions, and that of building up new systems, based upon the 
principles of justice and equality, in their stead. 

If all who come into the possession of wealth, either by 
inheritance or successful business enterprise or other legiti- 
mate means, were to consider and treat it as a trust, to be 
administered in such manner as to produce the greatest 
amount of happiness and comfort of which it is capable to 
others as well as to themselves, and for which they are to 
render an account as stewards to a paramount proprietor 
and Lord of all, there would be no conflict between capital 
and labor, for the laborer, in whatever field of human enter- 
prise employed, would be recognized as worthy of his hire, 
and would receive his just share of that which his industry 
and skill have aided in producing, and the disgrace and 
criminality of poverty and destitution, which are justly 
chargeable to our present selfish and corrupt social system, 
would cease to exist. 

But the idea of absolute individual ownership of property, 
and the right to accumulate without limitation, and to dis- 



304 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



pose of it at the sole pleasure of its possessor, as if he were 
its creator, and the distinction which society accords to him 
on account of his riches, are so gratifying to human vanity 
and pride, and cast such a glamour over his state, that few 
have been able to realize this great truth, that the real value 
of all worldly possessions consists in the good they may enable 
their possessor to do to others, and that they can afford true 
happiness in no other way. The whole atmosphere of soci- 
ety seems to be infected by this glamour. It permeates all 
classes and all professions. It is conspicuous in the pulpit, 
the choir, the chancel, at the altar, and in the pews of our 
popular churches, and among all modern religious denomi- 
nations. The elaborately ornate and expensive church edi- 
fices, the pomp and show introduced into the forms of wor- 
ship, and the extravagances of dress and equipage indulged 
by members of churches, as well as others who can com- 
mand the means of doing so, while there are thousands of 
their brother men and sister women suffering from hunger and 
cold, and disease caused by overtaxing the physical powers 
in ceaseless but unavailing toil, indicate too clearly the in- 
creasing tendency towards a division of our people into 
orders or classes of rich and poor, and render it more and 
more difficult for any to deal justly, and to live according 
to the precepts of divine wisdom. 

An aristocracy of wealth is equally opposed to the prin- 
ciples of a just equality of rights as an aristocracy of privi- 
lege and hereditary authority. Both alike lead to the op- 
pression and enslavement of the masses who inherit neither 
wealth nor privilege. 

The aggressions of capital upon the rights of the people 
who labor for a subsistence have never been more audacious 
and utterly regardless of moral principle than at the present 
time. One of the latest and most iniquitous of all the 
heartless and soulless schemes for the accumulation of 
wealth at the expense of the people, and for the impover- 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



305 



ishment of the wage-workers of the country, is that of 
trusts, by which not only the prices of labor, but of the 
products of capital and labor, are fixed by a central power 
which is wholly irresponsible to the people and defiant to 
the government. Through a combination of the owners of 
the coal-mines of the country, under the form of a trust, 
with railroad corporations and transportation companies 
which distribute their products to every city, village, and 
hamlet where it has become an indispensable article of con- 
sumption, the prices of coal are fixed for every retail dealer, 
all competition is precluded, and no such dealer dares to 
sell a pound of it at any other price, on pain of being 
denied the privilege of buying or selling it at all. 

This central power determines what mines shall be worked 
and what shall not be worked, and does not hesitate to close 
any of them when the profits of the combination will be in- 
creased thereby, and to throw thousands of miners out of 
employment for an indefinite period of time. As an ex- 
ample of this arbitrary exercise of power, it was recently an- 
nounced from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, that on the 19th of 
November, 1888, at a meeting of the coal operators, " it was 
unanimously decided to shut down all the mines along the 
Monongahela River for an indefinite period. This will 
throw out of employment seven thousand miners, besides 
all the river men engaged in taking coal down the river." 
The suffering which these men and their families must en- 
dure in consequence of this action, during the most inclem- 
ent season of the year, and the sickness and death that can- 
not fail to result from it, cannot be compensated for by all 
the blood-stained treasures that the coal operators can ever 
gain through such unhallowed means. 

Neither our national nor any State government would 

dare attempt by legislation to fix the price to be paid for 

any article that enters into the daily consumption of its 

citizens, nor to grant such power to any corporation or 

u 26* 



306 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

municipality; and yet, as we have pointed out in a former 
part of this work, there is scarcely an article used or con- 
sumed in this country the price of which is not arbitrarily 
fixed by combinations of manufacturers, producers, or 
dealers. 

If the millions of unjust gains accumulated by coal- 
mining, standard oil, and other combinations of similar 
character were fairly divided among those who are justly 
entitled to share with the capitalists in their distribution, it 
would enable every industrious citizen to live comfortably 
upon the proceeds of his labor, and to secure a competency 
to sustain him in sickness and old age, and would furnish a 
suitable provision for those who are unable to labor. No 
agrarian law for an equal division of property would be 
justifiable or salutary, but the principles of sound ethics 
and of a pure religion will be forever opposed to that vain 
pride and degrading selfishness which seek their gratification 
in the hoarding or display of wealth, and prompt men to 
seek its acquirement by means which may be justly charac- 
terized as robbery. The combinations to which we have 
referred exercise the powers and privileges and have all the 
odious characteristics of monopolies, than which no more 
monstrous tyranny has ever existed among civilized peoples. 

The means adopted by the famous Captain Kidd and his 
associates — some of whom are said to have been persons of 
high rank and social and political position — to make or in- 
crease their fortunes, and which the law denounced as piracy, 
were scarcely more reprehensible in a moral point of view 
than those by which these combinations accomplish their 
purposes. Piracy ar>d robbery are often attended by the 
destruction of human lives where resistance is offered by 
their victims, but who shall compute the daily sacrifice of 
health and life, and the suffering worse than death, that are 
caused by the fraud and injustice of the worshippers of 
Mammon ? 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 307 

So long as the strong arm of the government does not in- 
terfere for its prevention, and a debased public sentiment pays 
homage to riches more than to moral worth, there can be 
no abatement of the evil expected, and the tendency will be 
to its increase. The same restless spirit of enterprise and 
mental activity which has been stimulated by the rapid in- 
crease and diffusion of knowledge during the present cen- 
tury, and which has produced so many wonderful inventions 
and discoveries adapted to benefit and bless mankind, has 
also stimulated the unscrupulous, the avaricious, and the 
seekers of power and place to devise and carry into effect 
a thousand new schemes and devices for deceiving, defraud- 
ing, and oppressing the people. 

These monopolies are beginning to attract public attention 
and to create alarm among thinking observers of events, and 
it may be hoped they will, at no distant day, be met by such 
legislation and such moral force of awakened public senti- 
ment as will check, if not destroy, their power for evil and 
afford some protection to the just rights of the toiling 
millions. Congress, during its late session, instituted an 
inquiry into the nature and effects of trust combinations, 
and we may hope that their true character will be clearly 
and fully exposed, and that salutary legislation upon the 
subject by the national and State legislatures will be had, 
and that all such conspiracies, and all stock gambling and 
gambling in grains, and other like schemes for making 
money by fraud and villany will be prohibited by law, on 
pain of forfeiture of the money invested or property 
acquired, and the discipline of a State or national refor- 
matory. 

By the common law of England such acts of individuals 
or associations as were calculated to enhance the prices of 
merchandise or provisions for private gain, to the injury of 
the king's subjects in general, were held to be offences 
against public trade. Among these were forestalling, which 



o g PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

was described as the buying or contracting for any merchan- 
dise or victual coming in the way to market, or dissuading 
persons from bringing their merchandise or provisions there, 
or persuading them to raise the price when there. Regretting 
was another offence, which consisted in the buying of corn 
or other dead victual in any market and selling it again in 
the same market, or within four miles of the place, and 
thereby enhancing the price of the provisions. Engrossing 
was an offence of similar character, and was described to be 
the getting into one's possession, or buying up large quanti- 
ties of corn or other dead victual with intent to sell them 
again. " This," says Blackstone, " must of course be injuri- 
ous to the public, by putting it in the power of one or two 
rich men to raise the price of provisions at their own discre- 
tion. And so the total engrossing of any other commodity, 
with intent to sell it at an unreasonable price, is an offence 
indictable and finable at common law." The general penalty 
for these three offences by the common law was discretionary 
fine and imprisonment. 

Among the Romans these offences and other malpractices 
to raise the price of provisions were punishable by a pecu- 
niary mulct. Bl. Com., Book IV., chap. 12. 

Blackstone says that " Monopolies are much the same 
offence in other branches of trade that engrossing is in pro- 
visions," and were declared by statute, in the reign of King 
James the First, to be contrary to law (excepting certain 
patents for a limited period), and were punished with the 
forfeiture of treble damages and double costs to those whom 
they attempted to disturb. 

To monopolize, as defined by Webster, is, 1. To purchase 
or obtain possession of the whole of any commodity or goods in 
the market, with the view of selling them at advanced prices, 
and of having the power to command the prices. 2. To en- 
gross or obtain by any means the exclusive right of trading to 
any place, and the sole power of vending any commodity or 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? $ g 

goods in a particular place or country. The power is ex- 
pressly granted to Congress by the Constitution of the 
United States "to promote the progress of science and 
useful arts, by securing, for limited terms, to authors and 
inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings 
and discoveries. (Art. I. sec, 8.) And this is all the power 
that Congress possesses to grant any monopoly whatever. 
But it has the power to " regulate commerce with foreign 
nations and among the several States," and may prohibit 
the forming of combinations for establishing monopolies by 
arbitrarily fixing the price of articles of commerce through- 
out the country, and rendering any attempt at competition 
ruinous. The greater includes the lesser, and so trust com- 
binations, such as that of the coal-mine proprietors and 
operators, involve all the public evils of forestalling, re- 
grating, and engrossing, as known to the common law, with 
that of monopolizing in its most odious and aggressive form. 
The difficulty in legislating wisely upon these subjects 
under our complex system of government, so as to clearly 
define those acts which ought to be deemed criminal, and 
distinguish them from such as are allowable and beneficial, 
is very apparent to those who have had experience in legis- 
lation and the administration of the laws. We have ad- 
verted to this difficulty in discussing the proper definition 
of crime, and included many acts as criminal in their nature 
which, on account of this difficulty, are not made punish- 
able as such. Every enlightened government should en- 
courage trade, commerce, and manufactures, as a source of 
national and individual prosperity, and should place no re- 
strictions upon private enterprise excepting such as are 
necessary for the prevention of fraud, injustice, and oppres- 
sion ; but a government which will not, or cannot, protect 
the masses of its people against the rapacity and cunning 
of those who possess the means oi enslaving or impoverish- 
ing them is not worthy to be called just, much less to be 



3io 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



boastingly proclaimed " a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people." 

Some, if not all, of the threatened evils growing out of 
the rapid development of the stupendous schemes we have 
been considering for concentrating immense wealth in the 
hands of the few by combinations to control the business 
of the country, and not only to fix the prices of all com- 
modities consumed, but, directly or indirectly, the prices of 
labor also and the amount of production, have now assumed 
such a definite character that it appears to us practicable 
and the duty of the government to interpose, and by suit- 
able legislation endeavor to avert them by declaring all 
combinations for such purposes criminal and providing for 
their suppression. 

These combinations, unless promptly met and disarmed, 
will become a constant menace to the government itself, and 
an intimidation against the exercise of its just powers for 
their control and the prevention of their abuses. This 
danger is greatly increased by the general trend of politics 
under our system of government. It is now well under- 
stood, and a subject of regret and alarm to many, that the 
States are generally represented in the Senate of the United 
States by millionaires, or men of large wealth, many of 
whom have made their fortunes by successful speculation ; 
and, whether justly or unjustly, the impression largely pre- 
vails in the public mind that their positions were secured by 
the lavish use of money. Some of them adopt expensive 
and extravagant modes of living at the national capital, 
such as men of moderate means cannot afford. It is a fact 
universally understood, and altogether too lightly regarded, 
that a seat in the national House of Representatives, espe- 
cially from a district considered as at all doubtful, can only 
be secured by the expenditure of a large amount of money, 
while during the late canvass for Presidential electors it is 
represented, and is probably true, that the amount expended 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED ? ^n 

for carrying the election in a single State has exceeded a 
million of dollars. To the octogenarian whose memory- 
extends back to the administration of James Madison it 
may well seem as if the ancient republican simplicity had 
departed, and with it the rugged virtue and integrity as well 
as the practical equality of our people. 

Our danger does not arise from our great national pros- 
perity, nor the increased production of material wealth, but 
from allowing it to be grasped by a few, instead of benefiting 
the many. 

Mr. Powderly, Grand Master Workman of the order of 
Knights of Labor, at a recent meeting of the delegates of 
that organization, in calling attention to the work before 
them said, " The most important questions that can come 
before this body for consideration are those of finance, land, 
and transportation. These great questions are up before 
the people for discussion and solution, and must be settled 
by the people. . . . Those who control our public highways 
are reaching out with the hand of steel to grasp and control 
the government." 

Of all the monopolies to be dreaded in the future, there is 
perhaps none more likely to be disastrous to the masses than 
that of land. We have referred to this monopoly as it exists 
in England and Ireland, and every student of current history 
knows full well the sad condition of the farm laborer under 
their tenant system, and how that by toiling early and late 
he can only obtain a stinted and meagre subsistence for 
himself and his family, and that when, from sickness or 
other cause, he is incapacitated for labor they must suffer 
want and may become paupers. 

England has no written constitution, and the British 
Parliament is omnipotent in its powers of legislation. 
Hence it may interpose between the landlord and his 
tenants when the demands of the former become so exor- 
bitant as to disturb the peace of the country, whatever con- 



312 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



f 



tract relations may exist between them, and appeals may be 
made to the imperial legislature for relief or protection. 
But under our written constitution no State has the power 
to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, and 
hence when contract relations have been entered into no 
relief can be given by changing their terms or conditions. 
Under the provision of the constitution referred to, it was 
long ago decided by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, after much discussion and deliberation, that an act 
of a State Legislature creating a corporation for private 
purposes constituted a contract between the State and the 
corporation which it created, and could not therefore be 
repealed without its consent. The soundness of this de- 
cision has been questioned by able jurists, and we deem it 
unfortunate that such a determination was arrived at by 
that tribunal whose construction of the constitution is bind- 
ing upon all other courts, and we do not believe that the 
framers of that instrument intended to include corporate 
charters under the term contracts. If the court had taken 
that view of it, this country would have been saved from 
one of the great dangers that threaten the stability of our 
government. This danger so impressed itself upon the 
mind of President Lincoln as to cause him the deepest 
anxiety. Just before the close of our civil war he penned 
the following prophetic utterances : " Yes, we may con- 
gratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearly to a close. 
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best 
blood of the flower of American youth has been freely 
offered upon our country's altar that the nation might live. 
It has been indeed a trying hour for the republic ; but I see 
in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, 
and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. As 
a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and 
an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the 
money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 3^ 

reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until 
all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is 
destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety 
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the 
war. God grant that my impressions may be groundless." 

If there was ground for such fears and apprehensions 
nearly a quarter of a century ago, how much greater reason 
have we now to apprehend danger from these causes, when 
corporations have multiplied and combined their power and 
influence, and wealth has been aggregating in the hands of 
a few with such unexampled rapidity, until it overshadows 
and controls all the important industrial interests of the 
country, and has become the most potent factor in every 
election of legislative, executive, and ministerial offices. 
Can this power be controlled by legislation or counteracted 
by other controlling influences, and the impending danger 
which so impressed and agitated the mind of the patriot 
Lincoln be averted ? Surely no more momentous question 
was ever propounded to an enlightened people, living under 
a government emanating from themselves and theoretically 
based upon and controlled by their freely-expressed will. 
Are we now about to discover that, under the guise of free- 
dom, and the encouragement of trade, commerce, and 
manufactures, we have created and fostered in the money 
power a tyranny as potent and as destructive of liberty and 
equality as that of the most absolute ruler in the world ? 
There are some who believe this can be averted only 
through revolution and bloodshed, or some other great 
national calamity. The Rev. Dr. Talmage, in a recent Sun- 
day discourse, alluding to the injustice and oppression prac- 
tised towards some of the helpless victims of poverty, under 
the promptings of avarice, says, "There are evils in our 
world which must be thundered down, and which will re- 
quire at least seven volleys to prostrate them. We are all 
doing nice work in churches and reformatory institutions 
o 27 



3H 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



against the evils of the world, and much of it amounts to a 
teaspoon dipping out the Atlantic, or a clam-shell digging 
away at a mountain, or a tack-hammer smiting the Gibral- 
tar. What are needed are thunderbolts, and at least seven 
of them. There is the long line of fraudulent commercial 
establishments, every stone in the foundation, and every 
brick in the wall, and every nail in the rafter made out of 
dishonesty ; skeletons of poorly-paid sewing-girls' arms in 
every beam of that establishment ; human nerves worked 
into every figure of that embroidery ; blood in the deepest 
dye of that proffered upholstery ; billions of dollars of accu- 
mulated fraud intrenched in massive storehouses and stock 
companies manipulated by unscrupulous men, until the 
monopoly is defiant of all earth and all heaven. How shall 
the evil be overcome ? By treatises on the maxim, honesty 
is the best policy ? or by soft repetition of- the golden rule 
that we must do to others as we would have them do to us ? 
No, it will not be done that way. What are needed, and 
what will come, are the seven thunders. . . . Thunderbolts 
will do it ; nothing else will." 

These utterances of Dr. Talmage, like many of his pulpit 
declamations, may be tinctured with sensationalism, and his 
denunciations may be too sweeping, but they nevertheless 
truthfully describe the character of a portion of the com- 
mercial men of our great cities who have coined wealth out 
of the tired nerves and overtasked muscles and brains of the 
poor sewing-women, who have been compelled either to labor 
for them for a bare subsistence, or else starve or resort to a 
life of shame, — and of men who have enriched themselves 
by gambling in stocks or grains, or by other dishonest 
means. 

The indiscriminate denunciation of the wealthy, or of 
corporations and manufacturing associations which neces- 
sarily require the aggregation of a large amount of capital, 
would be as unreasonable as to denounce the poor because 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 3^ 

of their poverty. The requirements of the trade, commerce, 
and manufactures of the country, in which all our citizens 
are interested, and upon the successful prosecution of which 
depends the prosperity of each individual citizen, as well as 
that of the country in general, demand that these associa- 
tions shall exist, and that they shall control a vast amount 
of capital. It is not the possession nor the use of money 
which, in itself, constitutes an evil to be deprecated or a 
danger to be avoided, for these afford the means, not only 
of physical well-being, but of intellectual, moral, and spirit- 
ual progression. 

In legislating for the protection of the people against un- 
justifiable uses of capital, and of the power which wealth 
confers, the distinction must be carefully made between such 
as ought to be restrained or forbidden and such as are benefi- 
cial and not dangerous in their character. There should be 
no restrictions upon manufactures, trade, or commerce that 
are not clearly necessary for the purposes above indicated. 

The trust combinations to which we have referred, and 
which are attracting the attention of the national Congress, 
and of the State Legislatures, as well as that of the public 
at large, have recently become the subject of discussion by 
able jurists, as well as of judicial animadversion. Professor 
Dwight, of Columbia College, in an article on " The Legality 
of Trusts," published in the Political Scie?ice Quarterly, of 
December, 1888, discusses the subject of trusts at consider- 
able length and (taking the sugar trust as an example) 
arrives at the conclusion that they are not only legal, but 
that neither the State Legislatures nor the United States 
Congress can legislate upon the subject so as to suppress 
them. This conclusion is based upon the assumption that 
such trusts are not injurious to trade or commerce; that, as 
a rule, they are not dangerous to the public ; that " they 
cannot overcome the law of demand and supply, nor the 
resistless power of unlimited competition/' and that they 



316 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



are only a new step in the onward progress of the country 
which it would be unwise and, as he clearly intimates, un- 
constitutional for the Legislature to undertake to restrain. 
It is needless for us to repeat our very emphatic dissent 
from these conclusions. Such combinations are confessedly 
organized for the purpose of counteracting " the law of de- 
mand and supply'' by an arbitrary limit of production and 
destroying all competition. Protected by a high tariff from 
foreign competition, and controlling the entire production 
of sugar, oil, coal, and other commodities of absolute 
necessity consumed in the country, they can, as they have 
done and are doing, arbitrarily fix the prices which the 
consumer shall pay, unaffected by any natural law of de- 
mand and supply, or any possible competition. If our gov- 
ernment were powerless to afford any protection against 
such overshadowing self-constituted powers, operating 
through and controlling every branch of productive in- 
dustry, trade, and commerce, and abstracting from a help- 
less and dependent people as much as they choose for what 
they please to give, then it were time the people should 
organize a new government, capable of protecting the equal 
rights of all. But this cannot be admitted, and we believe 
that very few among the able jurists and statesmen of the 
country will be found to agree with Professor Dwight in 
his conclusions upon this subject. 

The Supreme Court of New York is reported to have 
held, in a recent case, that this same sugar trust was an un- 
lawful organization under the rules of the common law, and 
that the corporations which combined in its formation have 
forfeited their charters by doing so. But whether they are 
punishable by the common law as conspiracies against the 
public welfare and the rights of the people or not, their 
character is the same, and the power and duty of the gov- 
ernment to restrain and control or suppress them ought not 
to be a matter of doubt. 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



3*7 



We now proceed to consider some of the means by which 
labor has sought to secure its just share of the joint prod- 
ucts of labor and capital. To those who have observed 
the operations of labor organizations and their effect from 
an unprejudiced stand-point, as they have existed and now 
exist in this country, it must, we think, be obvious that 
comparatively little good, and much evil, has resulted from 
them. The organization of great trusts on the one hand 
for the purpose of limiting production and controlling 
prices, and of laboring men on the other hand for the pur- 
poses of controlling the prices of labor and determining 
who shall be and who shall not be employed, only serve to 
enlarge and intensify the conflict by placing each in a hostile 
attitude towards the other, to the detriment of both. The most 
disastrous conflicts the world has ever witnessed have oc- 
curred where both parties were in the wrong, each giving a 
pretext for the wrong-doing of the other. The methods 
of strikes and boycotts adopted by labor associations incite 
to and encourage anarchism and lead to lawlessness and 
crime. They appeal to the evil passions of men, and afford 
opportunity for the most wicked and depraved to gratify 
their desire for plunder or revenge with comparative im- 
punity. The great labor associations, and some of the 
smaller ones, establish a tyranny as odious as that which 
they seek to resist. In order to effect their purposes, the 
individuals, on becoming members of the order or associ- 
ation, surrender their freedom of action and subject them- 
selves to the dictation of a Grand Master or chief, or an 
executive committee, who direct when, where, and upon 
what terms they shall labor or desist from labor. By the 
rules which govern most, if not all, of the trade associations 
the members are forbidden to work in the same employment 
with non-union men, or those not belonging to their society, 
whom they designate as " scabs." The spirit thus fostered 
by these associations is entirely opposed to the fundamental 

27* 



3i» 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



principle upon which our social and political systems are 
supposed to be based, — that all men are created equal, — and 
to that most ennobling and humanizing principle of common 
brotherhood, common interest, and universal sympathy and 
good will, upon the practical application of which rest all 
our hopes of harmonizing human interests and improving 
our social condition. 

Of all the plans devised or suggested by philanthropists 
or political economists for harmonizing the interests of capi- 
tal and labor, those which embrace the essential principles 
of co-operation, or profit-sharing, appear to us to be the 
most feasible, practical, and just, because mutually bene- 
ficial in their financial, social, and moral aspects. While 
the institution of great corporations and trusts, in the usual 
and customary management of affairs, separates the employer 
and employe so widely as to offer but little ground of sym- 
pathy between them, co-operation and profit-sharing bring 
the capitalist and the laborer into constant association, and 
inspire mutual respect and kindly feeling by each towards 
the other. 

This plan does equal justice to all. The man of wealth 
who lends his money to those engaged in manufactures 
or other business enterprises may receive a fair return for 
its use. The manufacturer or other employer is entitled to 
a fair reward for the capital he puts into the business, 
and for his skill and enterprise, and the risks incident to the 
business. The laborer also is entitled to a fair remuneration 
for his toil and faithfulness ; and when, after satisfying these 
claims, a surplus of profits remains, simple justice requires 
that this should be shared by and distributed to the capital- 
ist and the laborer, the employer and the employed, whose 
combined labors and resources have produced it. If this 
system could be everywhere adopted and carried into prac- 
tical effect it would solve the great problem of the equitable 
distribution of wealth, and all would have reason to be satis- 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



319 



fied and content. There are, of course, various employments 
out of which no profit is produced, and to which this sys- 
tem could not be directly applied, but its influence would be 
reflected upon and benefit all classes of wage-workers and 
employes. Co-operation means mutual helpfulness, and its 
principles are adopted and practically applied in a great 
variety of ways. 

One mode of co-operation consists in the adoption of a 
sliding scale of wages in those branches of business in 
which it is practicable, as in rolling-mills, mining, and 
various other industries. It is stated that Mr. Potter, presi- 
dent of the North Chicago Rolling-Mill, is a strong advo- 
cate of this system, and that he has succeeded in convincing 
the employes of more than one of the many establishments 
with which he is connected that it is for their interest to ac- 
cept it. Under this system a minimum is in some cases es- 
tablished below which wages shall not fall, and a maximum 
above which they shall not rise. Mr. Potter, however, ad- 
vocates the widest scope, so as to cover not only the lowest 
but the highest prices paid for products. A basis having 
been reached by mutual agreement, his plan is to have 
wages fall below or rise above that basis just as the prices 
of products rise or fall. This plan is illustrated as follows : 
Taking steel rails at thirty dollars a ton as the basis, and 
wages at three dollars per day, if the price falls to twenty- 
eight dollars, wages to fall to two dollars and eighty cents 
per day, and if the price of rails rises to forty dollars per 
ton, wages to be four dollars a day, and so in the same 
proportion as the price of the product rises or falls. 
Whichever of these plans may be adopted, if the basis be an 
equitable one, the system embraces the main principle of 
profit-sharing, and is simple and practical in its operation. 
In some branches of business the profit-sharing system would 
probably be preferable. This system has been adopted in sev- 
eral large manufacturing institutions with very satisfactory re- 



320 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



suits. A writer in the Peoria (Illinois) Journal says, " We 
never heard of any striking among the workmen employed 
in the Pillsbury flouring mills at Minneapolis, and the reason 
is given in the plan pursued by the proprietors of the mills. 
Each year they set apart or name a certain percentage of 
their business as legitimate profits, and all over that per- 
centage they divide among their employes, pro rata. Last 
year this excess amounted to thirty-five thousand dollars, 
and that handsome sum was given to the employes. Every 
employe has his salary or wages and, besides that, an inter- 
est in the business. It is for his personal advantage to do 
what he can to save waste and needless expense, to increase 
the profits, and prevent the destruction of property." 

A writer on this subject in another journal says, " One of 
the best remedies for settling the supposed conflict between 
capital and labor seems to be the co-operative plan of 
dividing the profits over a stated amount with the workmen 
and employes, making the latter as closely interested in the 
success of the business, whatever it may be, as the em- 
ployers and capitalists. The plan is recommended by 
economists who have studied the theory of the subject, and 
seems to be the most practical and successful in actual 
operation of any of the proposed remedies. A St. Louis 
manufacturing company has made an offer like this to its 
employes, which proposes to make each one of them per- 
sonally and directly interested in the success of the com- 
pany's business, it being a proposition to divide the profits 
of the business with the employes, after allowing seven per 
cent, interest on actual capital invested. The remainder of 
the profits will be divided equally upon the total amount of 
wages paid and capital employed. Each employe will re- 
ceive his proportion of those profits, according to the wages 
paid him. All employes who have served the company six 
months or over within the year, and who have not been 
discharged for good cause, will share in the distribution. 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



321 



In addition, the company offers the employes the privilege 
of conducting a co-operative store. Each employe con- 
tributes five dollars in instalments of one dollar a week, 
which is to be invested in groceries and provisions. These 
goods are to be sold at the usual profits, which are to be in- 
vested in other goods, as required, and the surplus divided 
among the members. The employes elect their own man- 
agers and operate the store, while the company offers to allow 
the regular buyer of the establishment to do the buying, and 
will also furnish the store-room. The store will be open at 
the noon hour and on Saturdays from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m." 
As this writer remarks, " it depends upon the nature of the 
business whether this plan can be adopted or not. In some 
it would be quite impracticable. In all manufacturing busi- 
ness, however, it seems it would be most practicable. It is 
but a modification of the co-operative plan, and has many 
advantages to recommend it." 

Grand Chief Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Railroad 
Engineers, is reported as saying, " The great trouble is that 
there is too wide a chasm between employer and employe, 
and the sooner that chasm is closed up the better it will be 
for mankind." Whatever co-operative system may be 
adopted it will tend to close up this chasm by uniting the 
interests of capitalist and laborer, and will be a step towards 
that " federation of the world towards which, throughout all 
the past ages, thought and love, and hope and beauty, and 
good will in all the nations of the earth have been striving, 
and which is to establish the commonwealth of Man." 

In England there exists a system known as " Rochdale 
co-operation," the history of which is deeply interesting and 
instructive, and whose success has been marvellous. That 
great philanthropist and devoted friend of laboring men, 
George Jacob Holyoke, who has spent the largest portion 
of his eventful life in devising and advocating schemes for 
the elevation and advancement of the toilers of his native 



322 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

land, has been largely instrumental in promoting this great 
industrial scheme. 

The character and purposes of this beneficent institution, 
whose operations, it is said, commenced in a stable, with a 
wheelbarrow load of goods, will be seen by the following 
statement of Mr. Holyoke, contained in the March number 
of the Journal of Man. He says, " They now own land ; 
they own streets of dwellings, and almost townships ; they 
own vast and stately warehouses in Manchester, in London, 
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in Glasgow. They own a 
bank whose transactions amount to $8,000,000 a year. 
They possess more than 1400 stores, which do a business 
of over $160,000,000 a year; they own shares capital of 
$45,000,000 in amount, and are making now for their 
900,000 members more than $15,000,000 profit annually. 
The mighty power of co-operation has enabled the working 
class in the last twenty-five years to do a business of 
$1,800,000,000. Their splendid wholesale society has been 
buying stations in the chief markets of Europe and America. 
Their ships are on the sea. The life-boats they have given 
ride on every coast. They have invested $4,000,000 in the 
Manchester canal ; they issue newspapers ; they erect public 
fountains ; they subscribe to hospitals and public charities ; 
they own libraries, reading-rooms, and establish science 
classes, and subscribe scholarships in the university. 
Formerly the religion and politics of the working people 
were dictated to them by their employers, squires, and 
magistrates. Now, co-operatives have built halls for them- 
selves where they can hear the thing they will on any day 
they will. No landlord or public authority can lock the 
door upon them, because they own the place." 

Although this statement may seem almost incredible, and 
more like a romance than a reality, yet there is no reason 
for doubting its correctness, wonderful as the facts appear. 
The methods by which such astonishing results have been 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 323 

produced we cannot detail here, but they are all simple, 
easily understood, and open to the observation of the whole 
world, none of them being secret or secured by patent. 
None may undertake to estimate the power and influence 
of such an association of laboring men, with a membership 
of nearly or quite a million of men engaged in peaceful 
business pursuits, working in harmony for their own and 
others' welfare in an intelligent, systematic way, quietly, 
without serious friction, and without antagonizing any 
public or private rights of their fellow-citizens. 

Had that great labor association known as the Knights 
of Labor, organized twenty years ago, and now claimed to 
number over a million of members, associated themselves 
together upon the Rochdale co-operative plan, and pursued 
the methods adopted by their English brothers, we can con- 
ceive of no reason why they might not have been equally 
successful and prosperous ; and what a contrast would their 
condition have presented to what it is now! Instead of 
many millions of loss of money and time from lockouts and 
disastrous strikes, they might have accumulated a hundred 
millions of dollars, and each one himself have become a 
capitalist as well as a laborer. Instead of the shameful riot- 
ing and crime, and destruction of property and unlawful 
trespassing upon others' rights which have occurred, with 
all their demoralizing influences upon themselves and the 
community, they would have been engaged in honorable 
industrial pursuits that would have led to no conflict with 
the just rights of any of their fellow-citizens, and which 
would have brought prosperity, self-respect, and the respect 
and good will of others. In France the subject of co-oper- 
ation has occupied the attention and engaged the thoughtful 
consideration of some of the best minds that country has 
produced, but as yet the results have generally been more 
of a speculative than of a practical character. The most 
successful attempt to establish co-operative institutions in 



324 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

France that we have information of is that founded by 
M. Godin, known as the Familistere \ near Paris. In an ac- 
count of this great family of work-people, published in 
the Chicago Tribune, it is stated that from his boyhood M. 
Godin had been a student and follower of the social ideas 
of Fourier and Enfantin, and, having reached a position of 
power and influence, he determined to put those theories 
into practice. With this view he erected a large building, 
to which additions have since been made from time to time, 
until it now has a frontage of six hundred feet. This he 
divided into suites of rooms for his workmen and their 
families, and called it the "Palais Social." At first his work- 
men did not like the idea. They thought it would diminish 
their independence to live in such an institution. But M. 
Godin persuaded them that the system would make them 
really more independent, besides enabling them to live more 
cheaply and therefore to save money. 

In addition to the main building, various wings and ad- 
ditional buildings have been erected, until more than four 
hundred families are lodged in the " Palais Social." Were 
these in ordinary tenements, they would occupy a street 
more than a mile long. The buildings are all of brick and 
practically fire-proof, and constructed with every possible 
device for the comfort and sanitation of the occupants. 
The buildings are four stories high, and each story has a 
clear height of ten feet. There is an abundant supply of 
water in every room. There is also a large court-yard at- 
tached to each building, paved with cement and roofed with 
glass, serving as a play-room for the children in bad 
weather. The doors of the building are never locked, and 
there are no watchmen or special rules, so that all the occu- 
pants are as free to come and go and do. as they please as 
though each family lived in a cottage of its own. Each 
family may rent as many rooms as it pleases, and its apart- 
ments are entirely separate from its neighbors, excepting that 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONLZED ? ^2$ 

they open upon a general hall-way. The cost of the build- 
ings has been about two hundred dollars for each inmate, 
and the rent averages about one dollar per month for each 
room. M. Godin himself has always occupied rooms there, 
differing from those of his workmen in no respect save the 
furniture, etc., he put into them. 

Connected with the establishment are free schools of 
a higher grade than the public schools of France, free 
libraries, and reading-rooms ; a well-equipped theatre, the 
prices of admission to which are from five cents to forty 
cents ; gardens and parks, co-operative stores at which 
everything can be purchased at the lowest possible prices, 
and then pay an annual dividend of profit to the purchasers ; 
a cafe, a nursery, and numerous minor institutions. 

The manufactories cover nearly four acres of ground, and 
there are fully twelve hundred persons constantly employed. 
The bulk of the business done is the manufacture of stoves, 
ranges, furnaces, grates and their settings, coal-scuttles, and 
other domestic utensils of cast iron ; and it is said that the 
finest casting in the world is done there. The magnitude 
of the business may be reckoned from the fact that there 
are usually on hand, in stock, from thirty to forty thou- 
sand stoves and cook-ranges ready for shipment. 

The hours of labor are from 6 to 9 a.m., from 10 a.m. to 
1.30 p.m., and from 3 to 6.30 p.m., allowing one hour in the 
forenoon and one hour and a half in the afternoon for rest 
and recuperation, and devoting ten hours to work, which, 
by being broken up into three sections, fatigued the men 
less than eight hours of continued labor would have done. 

The average pay of the workmen has not been much 
above five dollars a week, and yet they are better paid than 
the hands in most other French factories. But their pay 
does not represent all their income, for each workman re- 
ceives a share of the profits proportionate to his share of 
the work of producing those profits. The capital stock of 

28 



326 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

the establishment is nine hundred thousand dollars. The 
annual dividend of profits to the workmen averages about 
eight per cent, on this, or seventy-two thousand dollars. 
This pays about one hundred dollars a year to those who 
live in the " Palais Social," for of the twelve hundred hands 
employed, some five hundred are mere outsiders who live 
in the village of Guise and come to the shops merely for 
their wages, like workmen in any ordinary factory. 

For the aged and crippled there are various pension and 
insurance funds. There is also a pharmacy fund by which 
the sick can procure needed medicine without cost. 

In the case of M. Godin the attempt has been made by a 
capitalist and an employer of laborers to put into practice 
a theory which he and many others believe is capable of 
solving the great labor question, by raising the laboring 
man to a condition of assured independence and affording 
him the means of education and mental and moral advance- 
ment, and the motive to strive for the best he is capable of 
becoming ; and this effort appears to have so far resulted in 
great benefit, both to the employer and employe. 

An intelligent and successful manufacturer of machinery, 
who had himself been a laborer for wages, is reported as 
saying that " Our present difficulties spring from the fact 
that our labor reform, though a just and needful one, comes 
from the wrong side. The reform, to be of any value and 
to achieve any permanent success, must come from the em- 
ployer and not from the laborer. But the employing class 
will not take up that reform until they are pushed to it; 
therefore I want to see as much agitation of the subject as 
the country will bear, both by the laborers themselves and 
all who sympathize with their claims." We can readily 
perceive how easy it would be to effect all needful reform 
relating to labor, and to establish the relations of capital 
and labor upon a just basis, if manufacturers and employers 
of labor generally would initiate measures adapted to that 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



3^7 



end ; and it seems to us equally clear that such measures, 
embracing the principle of co-operation, would be equally 
beneficial to both classes. This subject must and will be 
agitated throughout the country until the just rights of the 
laborer and the capitalist will be recognized and respected. 
Strikes, boycotts, and lawless violence by organized labor 
associations and their members are not the modes of agita- 
tion which right-thinking men want to see or can approve. 
The evil effects of these we have adverted to in treating of 
the causes of crime. 

Those who claim the sympathy of the wise and good 
should themselves be just, and opposers of wrong and in- 
justice. Men have struggled against each other from the 
beginning, and the consequences have been injurious to all. 
If, now, men were wise enough to strive for each other, what 
a contrast would appear ! Instead of anxiety, distrust, and 
hate, and a constant apprehension of evil, we should behold 
human faces beaming with love and confidence and joy. 
Order, harmony, peace, and good will would prevail, and we 
would have a new world wherein contentment would give 
place to unrest and dissatisfaction. The conflict between 
capital and labor would no longer exist, and fear of financial 
ruin and the miseries of hopeless poverty and despairing 
want would cease to embitter the lives of men. Carlyle 
truly says, " Men cannot live isolated. We are all bound 
together for mutual good or else for mutual misery, as living 
nerves of the same body. No highest man can disunite 
himself with any lowest. . . . Let a chief of men reflect 
well on it. Not in having ' no business' with men, but in 
having no unjust business with them, and in having all 
manner of' true and just business, can either his or their 
blessedness be found possible, and this waste would become, 
for both parties, a home and peopled garden." In the 
same book (" Past and Present") Carlyle penned these 
golden words also, which are worthy to be set in pictures 



328 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



of silver : " The wealth of a man is the number of things 
which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed 
by." 

In all the great mercantile establishments of the country 
it is believed that profit-sharing may be adopted to the 
mutual advantage of employer and employed. It has been 
adopted by one of the most astute and successful of men, 
who is at the head of an immense mercantile establishment 
in Philadelphia, and we believe with every assurance of suc- 
cess. We find the following published in the public news- 
papers in reference to the co-operative principle introduced 
into this establishment : " The experiment in profit-sharing 
which Mr. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, is making is 
one which will be watched with much interest. It marks a 
new and fraternal era in the labor question when four thou- 
sand employes are called together to receive the report of 
their principal, and to learn the share which they are to 
enjoy of the profits of the establishment. As a result of 
the first year, over fifty-nine thousand dollars have been dis- 
tributed in monthly dividends, in addition to the weekly 
salaries. Ten thousand dollars have been paid over to the 
trustees as a pension fund for the permanently disabled, 
whether by reason of old age or accident in the service. In 
addition to this, the balance divided in annual dividends 
amounted to forty thousand dollars." 

In an article written by George A. Bacon, of Washington, 
and published in a Boston periodical in December, 1888, on 
the subject of profit-sharing, the writer says, " While the 
economic relations of life are struggling with more or .less 
success to settle themselves upon a basis of equity, it is no 
less a duty than a pleasure to make public record of each 
and every instance where the principle of profit-sharing has 
been practically adopted, knowing that this process of ad- 
justment between labor and capital, between employer and 
employe, — that this form of mutual partnership, this com- 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



329 



prehensive scheme of practical co-operation, has every con- 
sideration to commend it. 

" Briefly outlined, profit-sharing presents itself as follows : 
Allow current rates of interest for capital invested. After 
paying fair salaries, necessary expenses, etc., divide the 
surplus pro rata among those who assist in producing it, 
adjusting wages to the relative value of each employe. 

" Our industrial system is founded upon profits secured 
through rivalry. By competition few can succeed, and then 
only at the expense of others. In profit-sharing, on the 
contrary, all being reciprocally related, each assists the other 
and the whole are benefited. A direct pecuniary interest 
stimulates industry and increases responsibility. A sense 
of personal ownership creates a conserving power in every 
community where it exists. 

" In a system of profit-sharing, ' strikes,' ' lockouts/ etc., 
become unknown. The relation of boss and laborer, instead 
of antagonizing, becomes harmonizing. Instead of war, 
peace ensues. Under a well-devised scheme of profit- 
sharing the conflicting interests that grow out of compe- 
tition no longer exist ; they become merged into one 
accordant and harmonious whole. The most simple-minded 
realizes that his own interests are directly increased in 
proportion as he faithfully works for others, — that he be- 
comes a part owner in the labor and materials furnished by 
his fellow-associates. The result is that self-reliance and 
self-respect and self-improvement naturally follow." 

Mr. Bacon refers to the following as instances of profit- 
sharing which had come to his knowledge during the pre- 
ceding year. " About two years ago the firm of Norton 
Bros., Chicago, having voluntarily offered to divide a portion 
of their profits for the year among their two hundred and 
fifty employes who worked continuously for six months, 
subsequently divided the sum of thirteen thousand two 
hundred and seventy-five dollars among them. Each em- 

28* 



330 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

ploye received over seven and a half per cent, on his year's 
earnings, which averaged from five hundred dollars to fifteen 
hundred dollars. This extra amount was from thirty-eight 
dollars and fifty cents to seventy-seven dollars and seventy 
cents. 

" A Cincinnati firm (Messrs. Proctor & Gamble, manu- 
facturers), towards the beginning of last year, proposed to 
their help that every six months an investigation should be 
made of their business, and that after allowing six per cent, 
on their capital, and reasonable salaries to members of the 
firm, the remainder should be divided among the employes 
in proportion to the capital and wages earned. This offer 
was received with thanks, and a promise was given that no 
outside influence should disturb the cordial relations between 
them and their employers. 

" When the late new proprietor of the Detroit Evening 
Journal, W. H. Brealey, Esq., took possession of that 
paper, a year ago last May, he announced that at the end 
of each year his intent was to divide a percentage of the 
profits among his employes in addition to their usual 
salaries. And here is a case where the capital is repre- 
sented by a corporation : President Ashley, of the Toledo, 
Ann Arbor, and North Michigan Railroad Company, not 
long since submitted the following proposition : That all 
officials and employes of the company who shall have been 
continuously in its service for five years or more shall, in 
addition to the regular wages paid to each, receive an 
amount which shall equal the proportion hereinafter named 
of such dividend on the capital stock as may be declared by 
the board of directors of the company in any one year." 

Mr. Bacon also refers to the case of Mr. Wanamaker, 
above noticed, and says that " Boston furnishes at least 
three notable instances of this beneficent scheme for the 
amelioration and encouragement of those in their respective 
employ. Foremost, the Boston Herald, to its credit be it 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 



331 



known, has adopted this worthy plan. It can well afford to 
do it, as it is a very successful concern, but this exceptional 
action is none the less commendable. 

" A popular dealer in fancy goods on Washington Street, 
gave notice to his help last year that it was his intention to 
divide the profits of his extensive business with those who 
had been in his employ one year, each January in future. 
He will divide one-half the net profits over a certain sum 
reserved for himself, this to be based on the previous year's 
business. The employes are to be separated into three 
classes : those in the first class comprising all who have 
been in his service five years or upward ; the second class 
those from three to five years ; the third class those from 
one to three years." 

Mr. Bacon adds that personally he would go out of his 
way to trade with such a merchant, and probably there are 
many others who would do the same. 

" The Workingmen's Co-operative Bank, of Boston, is 
practically on this basis. It has proved to be a successful 
institution, and justly so. 

" In these days of gigantic ' trusts,' ' corners,' ' combines,' 
etc., heartless monopolies of every kind and character, no 
one expects that the element of selfishness in men is to be 
eradicated. Implanted for a wise purpose, it only needs 
to be wisely directed. But in the economies of life to seek 
to substitute more righteous and equitable relations for 
those that generally prevail is always in order. Hence the 
emphasis given to the foregoing instances of practical co- 
operation in profit-sharing. Let these examples become 
multiplied a thousand-fold. The relief that is born of confi- 
dence, and which brings to legitimate increase moral and 
financial success, awaits all such economic action." 

Many more instances of the practical adoption of the 
plan of profit-sharing by employers with their employes 
might be cited, but those we have referred to are sufficient 



332 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



to indicate the feasibility of adopting it by railroad and 
other corporations, by manufacturers, and in merchandizing, 
mining, banking, and various other branches of business. 
They seem to indicate, also, that when a practical plan of 
labor reform is introduced by the employers who furnish 
the capital, it comes from the " right side" and appears to 
be uniformly successful when fairly and intelligently carried 
into effect. 

The United States Commissioner of Labor, in his report 
for 1886, treats of profit-sharing as a remedy for industrial 
depression, and commends it as one of the most hopeful 
means of harmonizing the interests of capital and labor. 
He says, " What is known as industrial copartnership, in- 
volving profit-sharing, and involving all the vitality there is 
in the principle of co-operation, offers a practical way of 
producing goods on a basis at once just to capital and to 
labor, and one which brings out the best moral element of 
the capitalist and the workman. This system has been tried 
in many instances, and nearly always with success. The 
leading experiments in Europe are well known, among 
them being the system adopted by Leclaire, a Parisian 
house-painter ; the methods in vogue with the Paris and 
Orleans Railway Company ; the industrial partnership es- 
tablished by M. Godin at Guise, France; the experiments 
of Messrs. Briggs Brothers in Yorkshire, England, and 
other places. In the United States but little has been done 
in this direction, but wherever the principle has been tried 
there have been three grand results : labor has received a 
more liberal reward for its skill, capital has been better re- 
munerated, and the moral tone of the whole community in- 
volved raised. Employment has been steadier and more 
sure. Each man feels himself more a man. The employer 
looks upon his employes in the true light as associates. 
Conflict ceases and harmony takes the place of disturb- 
ances." This feature, as a suggested remedy for industrial 



HOW SHALL CAPITAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED ? 333 

depressions, has in it so much of hope for the future, in the 
opinion of the commissioner, that he caused specimen arti- 
cles of agreement which had been adopted by manufactur- 
ing companies to be printed in his report for the benefit of 
all. Report, 281-284. The commissioner says, "The sys- 
tem of profit-sharing means just this: that the proprietor 
receives for the capital he invests the ruling rate of interest, 
as part of the legitimate expense of production. He puts 
in his share, other than capital, his managerial skill, his 
business accomplishments, and his knowledge of the in- 
dustry in which he is engaged. The men who work for 
him receive for their time and for the ordinary display of 
the skill required the ordinary rate of wages. The work- 
man also contributes, under profit-sharing or industrial co- 
partnership, his liveliest interest, his best skill, and the care 
of tools and materials. For the skill, knowledge, and man- 
agement of the proprietor, and for his being liable for the 
risks of the establishment, he is entitled to the larger share 
of the profits under this system, while the workman, taking 
no risks of the enterprise beyond that of employment, is 
entitled to the smaller share of profits ; but the two forces 
together arrange for a division of profits on some just and 
equitable basis. This system, simple in itself, humane in all 
its bearings, just in every respect to all the parties con- 
cerned, is the combination of all that is good in the wage 
system, and all that is good in co-operation as applied to 
production. ... It is a pleasure to be able to state that the 
proprietors of many influential manufacturing establishments 
in this country are contemplating the organization of their 
establishments upon this basis. They see the success of 
the enterprise where this system already has been adopted, 
and are glad to follow in so just a path." 

With so many apparently incontestable facts in favor of 
the co-operation of capital and labor, under some of the forms 
of profit-sharing which have been tested and found to be 



334 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



profitable financially, and morally elevating in their effects, it 
seems reasonable to conclude that as soon as the attention of 
employers of labor is directed to it, and they come to under- 
stand its operation, they will appreciate its advantages, and 
that they will not long hesitate to adopt it generally. When 
this shall be accomplished the conflict between capital and 
labor will cease and their interests become identical. 

If this plan had been adopted generally by corporations, 
manufacturers, merchants, and other industrial institutions 
half a century ago, the many millions of loss which has oc- 
curred from strikes and lockouts would have been saved, 
and the crime, destitution, and moral degradation which 
have proceeded from them would have been averted ; the 
material, moral, intellectual, and physical condition of the 
laborers of the country would have been incomparably bet- 
ter than they now are, and the temptations to crimes against 
property being removed in a large degree, and general per- 
sonal good-will among all classes established, comparatively 
few crimes would be committed. Under the operation of 
this plan it would soon be found that with the more equal 
and just distribution of the profits of labor and capital, and 
the increased prosperity of all classes, the hours of labor 
might be gradually reduced, so as to afford every one time 
for intellectual improvement and mental and moral culture. 
With the multiplied power of machinery in nearly all the 
industrial arts, increasing the product in many of them from 
ten to a hundred-fold, it is our opinion that the time is not 
far distant when from six to eight hours a day will be 
deemed sufficient, and no more will be exacted. Labor will 
be then a pleasure instead of a burden, a source of health 
instead of bodily infirmity or disease, and will be performed 
cheerfully and well. 

Were we proposing some new and untried theory for 
uniting the interests of capital and labor and avoiding all 
conflict between them, we should do so with great diffl- 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED? 335 

dence, however plausible such theory might appear to us. 
But in commending a plan which has been tested to such 
an extent as to demonstrate its practicability and its adapta- 
tion as a remedy for the evils complained of both by em- 
ployers and employes, we feel the most confident assurance 
that no better, wiser, or more effectual plan has been, or 
perhaps can be, devised for this purpose than that of profit- 
sharing, and we believe we can do no better service to the 
wage-workers of the country than to advise that all labor 
organizations direct their attention to this subject, and "agi- 
^tate" for co-operation of capital and labor under a well- 
devised and well-matured system of profit-sharing. The 
contrast of such a system with that now prevailing would 
be as that of light with darkness, of love with hate, of ob- 
struction with helpfulness. The present is one of constant 
warfare and struggle ; that is one of peace and good-will. 
The present is to the laboring man one of sullen bitter- 
ness or despair, and to the capitalist of danger and distrust. 
The new system is one of cheerfulness and encouragement, 
of hope and confidence and security to all. 

There is perhaps no class of laborers who have suffered 
more from inadequate remuneration than coal-miners, and 
none of the efforts which have been made by the various 
associations and confederations seem to have essentially im- 
proved their prospects or condition. Their cries of distress 
have brought them no permanent relief, and the gleams of 
hope that have been awakened from time to time by reason 
of their appeals for justice and appreciation have been 
disappointing. In 1855 a convention composed of coal op- 
erators having mines in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Penn- 
sylvania, and of delegates representing miners employed in 
the various coal-producing regions of the country, was held 
in Chicago. At this convention a committee consisting of 
three mine owners and three delegates representing the 
miners' organizations w r as appointed to make a general 



336 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

public presentation of the objects and purposes of the con- 
vention, and to extend an invitation to all those engaged in 
the coal-mining of America to lend their active co-opera- 
tion towards the establishment of harmony and friendship 
between capital and labor in this large and important in- 
dustry. In the circular letter issued by that committee 
they say, " The undersigned committee believe that this 
convention will prove to be the inauguration of a new era 
for the settlement of the industrial question in our mining 
regions, in accordance with intelligent reasoning, and based 
upon fair play and mutual justice," and it was the evident 
desire of the representatives of the interests both of capital 
and labor that this question should be settled upon a broad, 
liberal, and just basis. This address of the joint committee 
representing the miners and mine owners is one of the most 
remarkable productions which has appeared relating to this 
subject, and one of the most temperate and just in its state- 
ments and deductions. It is published at length in " The 
Story of Manual Labor," and is worthy of the most careful 
consideration, and it is a subject of profound regret that its 
recommendations were not more favorably received by some 
of those most deeply interested. 

Referring to the agencies which had been adopted for the 
adjustment of labor disputes, the committee say that "the 
history and experience of the past make it apparent to every 
intelligent and thoughtful mind that strikes and lockouts are 
false agencies and brutal resorts for the adjustment of dis- 
putes and controversies arising between employing capital 
and employed labor. They have become evils of the greatest 
magnitude, not only to those immediately concerned in them, 
but also to general society, being fruitful sources of public 
disturbance, riot, and bloodshed. Sad illustrations of this 
truth are now being witnessed in certain of our large cities 
and in several of the mining and manufacturing centres of 
the country. These industrial conflicts generally involve 



HOW SHALL CAPLTAL AND LABOR BE HARMONIZED 



337 



waste of capital on the one hand and the impoverishment of 
labor on the other. They engender bitter feelings of preju- 
dice and animosity, and enkindle the destructive passions of 
hate and revenge, bearing in their train the curse of wide- 
spread misery and wretchedness. They are contrary to the 
true spirit of American institutions, and violate every prin- 
ciple of human justice and Christian charity. Apart and in 
conflict capital and labor become agents of evil, while united 
they create blessings of plenty and prosperity, and enable 
man to utilize and enjoy the bounteous resources of nature 
intended for his use and happiness by the Almighty." 

At a joint meeting afterwards held in Columbus, Ohio, 
which was largely attended, a proposition was made to raise 
the wages of miners according to a certain scale, which 
proposition was adopted by a majority of thirty-one to nine. 
But some of the mine owners refused to accept it, and thus 
this most laudable attempt to " adjust market and mining 
prices in such a way as to avoid strikes and lockouts, and 
give each party an increased profit from the sale of coal," 
failed at the moment when it seemed almost sure of accom- 
plishment, and the former evils have continued and increased, 
to the great loss and injury of both parties and the great 
detriment of the public morals. Had the noble efforts of 
those men resulted in the adoption of a system of co-opera- 
tion by profit-sharing between the mine owners and mine 
laborers, instead of thousands of the latter now being in 
such a state of destitution as to be obliged to appeal to 
public charity to save them from starvation, all might have 
been living in comfort upon the avails of their honest in- 
dustry, while the former would have found a source of 
wealth more valuable than gold in the doing of good to 
their fellow-men. 



29 



338 PREVENTION OF CRIME, 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

There are several topics connected with the prevention 
of crime, some of which have been alluded to in former 
portions of this work, which we deem it proper to call 
attention to in this chapter. 

Convict Labor. 

Much discussion has been had and considerable feeling 
been exhibited on account of the productive labor of the 
prisoners in our penitentiaries, and the plan of employing 
prisoners in some sort of useful labor has been opposed 
upon the supposition that it created an unjust competition 
with free labor, and urgent appeals have been made to 
Legislatures to suppress prison labor for this reason. That 
this objection is fallacious we think has been abundantly- 
shown. The United States Commissioner of Labor says in 
his report for 1886, " Convict labor is a disturbing element, 
affecting the moral apprehension of large bodies of people, 
and thereby aids in irritating the public mind relative to 
depressions ; but the labor of all the prisons in the country 
bears so small a proportion to the whole product of the 
country's industries, that such labor cannot be considered 
as a prime or influential cause of depressions." 

General R. Brinkerhofif, in a paper read before the National 
Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1877, gives sta- 
tistics showing the forms of industry pursued in the prisons, 
the whole number of citizens, and the whole number of con- 
victs employed in these industries, and adds, " From these 
figures it is apparent, therefore, that the total amount of 
prison labor actually employed in productive industries in 
the whole United States amounts, at the farthest, to two 



CONCLUSION. 



339 



and a half per cent, of free labor employed in the same in- 
dustries. It should be borne in mind, however, that a large 
proportion of all prisoners are employed in the same indus- 
tries inside that they previously were engaged in while out- 
side; and as the product of their labor inside cannot be 
greater than it was outside, how is it possible that their 
labor should injuriously compete with free labor? It is a 
fact, however, which should be remembered, that the pro- 
ducing power of convict labor is about one-fourth less than 
free labor, so that the actual product of convict labor in the 
United States is less than two per cent, of the total produc- 
tion of free laborers in the same industries." He further 
says, " The number of emigrants who come to our shores 
in a single month would be sufficient to supply the indus- 
trial position of the suppressed convicts, and by employ- 
ment outside would soon bring prices and wages to their 
former level." 

It should also be remembered that the convict, by his 
labor, is earning the expenses of his own support, and 
perhaps something more, and saving the free industries of 
the State from so much of taxation. But if it is true that a 
few industries are injuriously affected by convict labor to an 
appreciable degree, there are still considerations of over- 
whelming weight in favor of such employment which it 
would be a public crime to ignore. To shut men up in 
prisons for crime without labor, and keep them for long 
periods in idleness, would be in a high degree cruel and 
inhuman. 

No enlightened prison manager of the present time could 
be found who would not tell us that prison life without labor 
would not only defeat all hopes of reformation, but that it 
would, if long continued, destroy the man, both mentally 
and physically, and crush out all moral susceptibility They 
would have to be confined in chains and dungeons, as was 
the practice a century ago, or surrounded by an army of 



340 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

guards approximating in number that of the prisoners in 
their charge. Indeed, the idea of such enforced idleness of 
five or six hundred men in a single prison is too shocking 
to contemplate. Uncompromisingly opposed as we are to 
destroying a human life excepting only in self-defence, yet 
we believe this would be more merciful than imprisonment 
for several years without some sort of manual labor or 
other useful occupation. 

To be idle in a prison is to experience that " life in death" 
of Poet Coleridge, to which we have referred in a former 
chapter. When Carlyle says, " The awakened soul of man, 
all but the asphyxed soul of man, turns from it as from 
worse than death," he refers to the condition of those who 
are without employment, outside of prisons. If to these 
enforced idleness is so terrible, how much more terrible in 
chains and dungeons within a prison ! 

No moral improvement of the man can be hoped for 
under our penitentiary system, much less his reformation, 
without labor. " For," says Carlyle, " there is a perennial 
nobleness, and even sacredness in work. Were he never 
so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always 
hope in the man that actually and earnestly works : in 
Idleness alone is there perpetual despair. . . . The latest 
Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. The 
blessed glow of Labor in him, is it not as purifying fire, 
wherein all poison is burnt up, and all sour smoke itself 
there is made bright blessed flames ? Destiny, on the 
whole, has no other way of cultivating us. . . . Blessed is 
he who has found his work ; let him ask no other blessed- 
ness. He has a work, a life's purpose ; he has found it and 
will follow it. 

" Properly speaking, all true work is Religion ; and what- 
soever in Religion is not work may go and dwell among the 
Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it 
will ; with me it shall have no harbor. Admirable was that 



CONCLUSION. 34! 

of the old monks, ' Lab or are est Orare? work is worship. 
Older than all preached gospels was this unpreached, in- 
articulate, but ineradicable enduring gospel ; work, and 
therein have well-being." 

Let legislators, and all who possess power and influence 
in affairs of government and administration, rise to a just 
appreciation of these inspired utterances of one of the great 
prophets of modern thought and enlightenment, and the 
wheels of progress will move onward and upward with con- 
stantly accelerated motion, and future generations will bless 
their memory for the good they have done and the happi- 
ness they have secured to them. 

Care for the welfare of those who have been released from 
prisons and reformatories. 

Under the reformatory system which we advocate, the 
subject of treatment for crime goes out into the world again 
carrying with him the assurance that, though he has been 
capable of committing crime, he has exhibited such evidence 
of his reformation and disposition to live an honest life, and 
of his capacity to make himself useful in some industrial 
pursuit, that he may be safely employed and trusted. In- 
stead of being turned out friendless to take the chances of 
finding a home and employment, with good moral influences 
surrounding him, or falling into evil associations and re- 
lapsing into crime, those who have had the care and direc- 
tion of his training and discipline will, in all cases where it 
is practicable, arrange beforehand for a suitable home and 
employment for him. Correspondence will be kept up with 
him, and every encouragement given him until his position 
is established upon a safe moral basis, and, if necessary for 
his security at any time, the doors of the institution will be 
open to him as a temporary refuge. Under our present 
penitentiary system, when the man has served out the period 
for which he was sentenced, the institution in which he has 
served has no further business with him. He takes what is 

29* 



342 PREVENTION OE CRIME. 

allowed him of clothing, and perhaps the means are fur- 
nished him of travelling to his destination, if he has any; 
and however good his intentions may then be of trying to 
live an honest life, his chances are small of finding employ- 
ment and such encouragement as he needs, or providing 
against want without again resorting to crime, unless some 
charitable association, organized for such purposes, extends 
to him a friendly, helping hand. There are a few such asso- 
ciations in the country, and the benefits they have conferred 
upon this class of persons have been very great, and there 
are many who bless them for the saving influence they have 
exercised. If our present system of sentencing criminals to 
the penitentiary for definite terms is continued, some plan 
ought to be devised by the Legislature for aiding and en- 
couraging all ex-convicts who are disposed to reform, at the 
expense of the State ; and a temporary asylum should be 
provided for such as may need it, in order to prevent their 
lapsing into crime. The man who goes out with a mark 
set upon him, and finds every man's hand against him, 
must have become better than the average of mankind if 
his hand is not turned against every man. Such a one 
must steal or starve, and it is not surprising that so many 
who might and should have been saved, return to our peni- 
tentiaries for new crimes committed, nor that instances occur 
in which this is done for the express purpose of being 
returned to their old quarters. It would surely be for the 
interest of the State to provide a home and employment for 
such until something better can be done for them. Through 
our State boards of charities and corrections, and their 
agents in each country, a system of communication between 
the class of persons referred to and a State asylum such as 
we have suggested may be adopted, by means of which 
homes and employment might be found for all such as 
can furnish evidence that they may be safely trusted and 
employed. 



CONCLUSION. 



343 



Exclusion of paupers and criminals of other nationalities 
from our shores. 

While it is the interest and duty of our government and 
people to adopt a hospitable and friendly policy, and to en- 
courage good-will and kindly sympathy towards the people 
of all other nations, it cannot be either wise or humane 
towards our own people to admit the paupers and criminals 
of the older nations of the globe to be brought here and 
dumped upon our shores without limitation or restraint, to 
be a burden upon our municipalities, or to exert a corrupt- 
ing influence in our communities. These classes our gov- 
ernment has undertaken to exclude, but either because our 
laws are inadequate or are not enforced with sufficient vigor 
and faithfulness, multitudes of them are constantly being 
thrust upon us. It is the duty of every nation to take care 
of and provide for its own poor, as well as its criminals, and 
it is unjust that any nation should allow this burden to be 
cast upon any other people. 

Our government has also forbidden the introduction here 
of foreigners under contracts for labor. The laws enacted 
for the purpose of preventing the slavery of the immigrant 
under the former contract system, and the protection of our 
own laborers against ruinous competition with those whose 
habits of life enable them to live and labor upon cheaper and 
coarser food than our own workingmen can subsist upon, 
and for wages that would not support an American laborer, 
have been extensively violated or evaded, and seem to re- 
quire amendment by the adoption of some more stringent 
regulations. The greed of manufacturers and contractors 
upon railroads and other great works has tempted them to 
secure the introduction of great numbers of Bohemians, 
Hungarians, and Italians, of the class just referred to, in 
the hope and expectation of making large profits upon 
their labor. But cheap laborers have not been long in 
learning that they were not receiving, as they were induced 



344 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



to believe, the current rates of wages of the country, nor 
slow in adopting the means that the labor organizations 
here have rendered familiar; and strikes among them, as 
might have been expected, have been attended with more 
fierce and reckless brutality and crime than have resulted 
from any of the thousands of other strikes which have oc- 
curred. Their ignorant turbulence and riotous destruction 
of life and property have made them a terror, not only to 
their employers, but to the communities in which they have 
lived. The outrages which they have shown themselves 
capable of committing may result in discouraging their in- 
troduction and employment in competition with our own 
more intelligent and self-respecting laborers, but this does 
not compensate for the evil they have done. Another 
dangerous class of persons to which we have had occasion 
to refer is composed of those who are known as anarchists. 
These are the open and declared advocates of treason 
against all civil government, and it is understood that they 
are banded together in secret organizations for the purpose 
of securing their ends by violence or revolution. Associa- 
tions of this character are dangerous to the peace and good 
order of society, and their advocacy of such principles bor- 
ders very strongly upon misprision of treason. It is in the 
power of Congress to provide for excluding or expelling 
persons who are known to be advocates of treason, though 
they may not be guilty of any overt act constituting treason. 

The equal education of the sexes. 

" An eminent French writer has said, ' When you educate 
a boy, you perhaps educate a man ; but when you educate 
a girl, you are laying the foundation for the education of a 
family.' He might have added, that to this end the physical 
training is of equal importance with the mental. 

" In these days the subject of the physical training of 
young men is occupying much attention, and the discus- 
sions are broad and full of interest. The fault is that the 



CONCLUSION. 



345 



needs of both sexes in this respect are not equally consid- 
ered. 

" An erect figure, an organization in which the processes 
of life may go on without the ceaseless disorder of functions 
at war with each other because of abnormal relations, — in 
short, the added advantages which a fine physical adjust- 
ment gives to its possessor, — are as necessary to the one 
sex as to the other, and for the same reason. If physical 
education and consequent improvement are things to be de- 
sired, it is not that a number of individuals, as a result of 
this training, shall be able to perform certain feats of 
strength or agility, but in its broadest sense it is for the 
improvement of the race, and the race cannot materially 
advance physically, intellectually, or morally unless the two 
factors which constitute the race share equally in whatever 
tends to its greater perfection. Therefore, if in consequence 
of proper physical training men can do more work, live 
longer, and transmit to their offspring a share of this im- 
proved condition, women also should be so trained that 
they can do more work, live longer, and contribute to the 
higher possibilities of their offspring by supplementing, in- 
stead of thwarting, the promise which has been presupposed 
in the higher development in the male parent." (Dr. Lucy 
M. Hall, in Science Monthly) 

These remarks by a lady physician of some note are very 
suggestive and worthy of the most profound attention. 
Since scientific observations and correlation of facts have 
made us acquainted with the laws of heredity, the physical, 
mental, and moral education of both sexes assumes an im- 
portance and gravity which our more ignorant ancestors did 
not comprehend, and which is not now generally understood 
or appreciated. A writer in the London Hospital, treating 
of the subject of hereditary taints, says, " One result of the 
labors of physiologists has been the clearing of the mental 
vision and the gradual comprehension of the great, perva- 



346 



PREVENTION OF CRIME. 



sive, and potential fact of 'heredity! 'The sins of the 
fathers shall be visited upon the children,' said Moses more 
than three thousand years ago. Probably he comprehended 
in but a very small measure the significance of his own 
utterance. Not only do parents transmit to children their 
mental peculiarities, their moral tendencies, the features of 
the face, the stoop of the shoulders, and the trick of the 
gait, but they pass on to them their blood, their brain, their 
glands, their very soul and life. We do not mean to say 
that heredity is a tyrant from which there is no escape, and 
that as is the parent in constitution and conduct so also 
must be the children to the remotest generation. 

" If that were one of the discoveries of physiology, small 
thanks would be due to the science from overburdened man. 
But it is not so. The parent himself, as is well known, can 
modify and make worse or better both his constitution and 
his character. Similarly, the child's constitution and char- 
acter may be changed, until, by the operation of the law 
of heredity itself, a not very remote descendant may be the 
antipodes of his early progenitors. The discovery of an 
existing inherited taint of disease or of vice in a child is 
not a cause for regret, but for thankfulness. The disease 
taint itself is, of course, to be deplored, and so is the in- 
herited vice; but its early discovery is to be hailed with 
gratitude as pointing out lines of physical and moral treat- 
ment which may lead to the practical enfeeblement of the 
taint or even to its eradication." 



THE END. 



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A MAGNIFICENT AND UNRIVALLED WORK. 

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715-717 MARKET STREET, 
PHILADELPHIA. PA. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT'S 

Waverley Novels 



NEW LIBRARY EDITION. 

Complete in 25 Octavo volumes. Cloth, $1.75 Per volume; half morocco, 
gilt top, $2.25 Per volume. Insets: Cloth, gilt top, $43. 75; half morocco, 
$56.25; half calf , gilt marbled edges ,$75.00 ; three-quarters calf, $87. JO. 

Special Edition, with 135 Extra Steel Plates (in all 185 Plates). Sets: In 
cloth boards, 25 volumes, $62.50; three-quarters calf, extra, $112.50. 

" We are glad to say of it that it is the most desirable set that we have ever 
seen. It is tastefully bound in a coat of dark blue and elegantly lettered in 
gold, with gilt top. The type is large and beautiful, and is set in a margin 
at least an inch in width of clear white paper. Each volume contains a fine 
full-page steel-engraving, either a portrait or copy of some famous picture illus- 
trating the story, and a steel vignette. The edition needs but to be seen to 
be coveted by every lover of beautiful books." — Boston Advertiser. 



ABBOTSFORD EDITION. 

Complete in 12 volumes. Demi 8vo. Illustrated with over 300 Steel- and 
Wood-Engravings. In box. Extra cloth, gilt back, $18.00 ; half calf, 
gilt extra, $3Q.oo. 

PEOPLE'S EDITION. 

Complete in 6 volumes. Illustrated. i2mo. Extra cloth, per set, $0.00. 
The same in 12 volumes. Extra cloth, per set, $12.00; half calf, $30.00. 



BOSTON EDITION. 

Complete in 12 volumes. i2mo. Cloth, $12.00: half calf, $/8.00. 



CENTENARY EDITION. 

Complete in 25 volumes. i2mo. Cloth, $31.25; half calf, $62.50; three- 
quarters calf extra, gilt top, $75.00. 



EDINBURGH EDITION. 

Complete in 48 volumes, ibmo. Cloth, $60.00; cloth, gilt top, $70.00; half 
calf gilt, $120.00. 



*** For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent by the Publishers, free of 
expense, on receipt of the price. 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 

715-717 MARKET STREET, 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



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